The Russell County Fiscal Court started off their meeting with presentations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the new contractor at Wolf Creek Dam, Treviicos-Soletanche.

David Hendrix, from the Corps' Nashville district office, told the magistrates and audience that there will be a traffic light at the intersection of Powerhouse Road and U.S. 127 and that the speed limit from about the state park entrance to the other side of the dam will be lowered to 45 miles per hour.

Wes Schmutzler, with Treviivos, said the company has awarded $15 million worth of contracts to local subcontractors already and anticipates hiring, "a lot of local labor."

Schmutzler said they will be working on widening the work platform on the side of the dam first, along with installing additional instruments in the dam before beginning work installing the parts of the cutoff wall sometime in March.

None of the magistrates had any questions for the company officials or the Corps' engineers and the meeting moved on to the regular business of bills and minutes before coming to the reason the meeting started late.

County Judge-Executive Mickey Garner said the idea to locate a new county jail in the basement of the new judicial center was rejected by the property development board.

Wendell Emerson, whose company is handling the bond issue for the judicial center, told the members of the court that the payments on a bond to build a new jail would be less than $400,000 per year.

Garner said that figure was about what the county was paying to house and transport prisoners elsewhere. He said he has talked with the city and they are willing to sell the county land behind the site of the judicial center.

After a short discussion, the court agreed to consider the cost of commissioning a preliminary study by the architect and construction management firms that are working on the judicial center.

That first step toward planning a new jail is expected at a special called meeting sometime next week.

The court approved $900 for the parts to overhaul a county grader and another $900 to rebuild three brush-cutting mower decks.

Magistrates also voted to send the local fire departments the money they'd budgeted for them to have at the beginning of this fiscal year.

Coroner Larry Skaggs told the court there had been no bidders on a building to house the new mobile morgue. He was told the court would advertise again for bidders and open any bids the receive at the regular meeting of the court in February.

Half-an-hour before that regular meeting a public hearing was scheduled for a county noise ordinance.

The court also approved application for grants that could pay for the materials to paint and landscape the courthouse.