The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners voted 4-0 on Thursday to renew the county’s lease for office space in the Wells Fargo Bank building in downtown Dalton for three years.
The county will pay $15,630 a month through July 1. After that, the space leased will increase and the payments will go to $18,386 a month.
“We have the third through fifth floors today,” said board Chairman Jevin Jensen. “The expansion gets us space on the first floor, where citizens can more easily come for meetings right off the main level without taking the elevator.”
Jensen typically votes only if there is a tie.
The county will also get space on the second floor for offices and storage.
The county can cancel the lease with 180 days notice with no penalty.
County administrative offices have been in the top three floors of the Wells Fargo Bank building since the commissioners decided to close Administrative Building No. 2 in 2019. That building, at the corner of King Street and Selvidge Street, opened in 1967 as a church and by 2018 had a number of structural issues. The Dalton Fire Department sent the county a three-page letter in 2018 detailing the ways the building failed to meet the fire code.
The commissioners also voted 4-0 to name John “Bob” Haverland to the Board of Assessors. Haverland teaches accounting at Dalton State College.