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- County officials move into newly remodeled office
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NEW DIGS • Sharon Jarrett, left, and Alaina Lofgran, clerk, have moved into the newly remodeled clerk/auditor’s office.
By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The county clerk/auditor’s office is ready for business in the remodeled section of the Juab County building. “I would like to thank all those who made this possible,” said Alaina Lofgran, Juab County Clerk/Auditor. “I would like to thank the construction company and the commission.” The clerk/auditor’s office moved across the hall to the commission chambers while the office was moved to the new space just north of the former office. Commissioners met in the meeting room of the EMT building for a month while the construction took place. Lofgran and her deputies, Sharon Jarrett and Jan Tedder, are now located in the new office space and commissioners have returned to their chambers. “We received a grant of approximately $57,000 from the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) so that the clerk’s office can be ADA compliant,” said Lofgran. The county paid for the building extension, made possible by a grant/match obtained by the county commission. That extension took back space used by the twin staircases which were removed to create office space on both the main floor and the second floor. In the days before the county building became that, it was a high school, and the now clerk’s office was the principal’s office. The building, minus the stairs which were added in the 1980 remodel which turned the high school into a county building, has been returned to a similar floor plan. Construction on the building remodel continues but the clerk/auditor’s office is complete. It features a front counter, separated from the front entrance hallway by glass, and behind the counter is the office space where the desks of Lofgran, Jarrett and Tedder are located. In the back, on the west side, is a room that can be used for voting. Partitions for voting are located there. “The county clerk/auditor’s annual budget bought the desks,” said Lofgran. Glenn Greenhalgh, Chief Technology Officer at Juab County, will now have a larger office as will his secretary as they will move down from cramped quarters to use part of the space which once served the clerk’s office. The funding for that change will come from the grant the commission received to remodel the building. “I wanted to make the office ADA compliant for those coming to the office to vote,” said Lofgran. Paid for by the $57,000 grant money applied for and received by Lofgran were two ADA Handicap Door Openers for a total of $10,710; carpet for the clerk/auditor’s office at $10,512; five gallons of paint at $149.85; two ballot boxes for disabled users at $778.40; widening the main entrance door to the clerk’s office; rebuilding and relocating the counter in the clerk’s office at $6,644.38; door replacement at $431.72; three 51-foot by 36-inch ramp railings on the south side entrance at $3,550; and demolishing the old concrete ramp and stairs on the south side entrance at $10,850. Also paid for was the rebuilding of a wider, more sloped concrete ramp on the south side of the building and the removal and rebuilding of the concrete stairs on the north side of the building. Another 2016 American with Disabilities Act Grant which totaled $5,158 paid for two Screenflex Portable Room Partition Dividers. Lofgran said that coming to vote at the county building had been a challenge for those with physical handicaps or disabilities requiring them to use either the south or north entrance to the building. The south ramp was too steep and narrow and the entrance doorway was not properly equipped. Once inside, they faced further challenges, she said. If someone in a wheelchair wanted to use one of the electronic voting devices located in her office, they could not do so because they could not get inside her office. She and/or one of her deputies would have to move the device to the doorway so that the person could access the device from the hallway. That will no longer happen, she said. Wider spaces have been planned into the design so that wheelchair patrons can access any needed space. “Our office is now handicapped compliant,” said Lofgran. “We can now accommodate the needs of our citizens.”
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