"As most everyone knows in 2018 under the former town administration the town purchased a lot at 503 S. Main St. which is a prime location to have built a town hall on. Unfortunately, the width of the lot turns out to not be large enough for the building to fit on.

"After going back and forth with the engineer, architect, and county to try and make this work it became a reality to the Town Administrators that this lot is just not going to work. Developments from funding requests to the Governor’s office, to be added into the state budget for our town hall construction and being approved for $400,000, we started looking at some other options.

"The additional funding allowed the Town to look at other options. It just so happened that the new owner of the old bar property in town, located at 605 S. Main St., which recently sold, decided she would be interested in selling the lot. She offered to sell it to the town, and after proposing this to the town council the decision was made to purchase the lot.

"This lot is almost double in size of the original lot and on Friday April 22nd, the town signed a contract to purchase this lot which is now pending closing.

"The current structure on the property will be removed and the lot will be prepared for construction of the new town hall soon after the closing of the property. With the size and current zoning of this lot the permitting and building processes should move through the county more quickly.

"I am very excited about the town receiving the funds as well as having the option to build a larger building like we originally wanted and not have to cut the size down due to restrictions of the lot size," Burgess Barnes said.

The News-Journal thanks Burgess Barnes for this late minute update and we will run a more deleted front page story in the June edition on the Town Hall status.