Noland Smith lives right across the street from a fire station in Forsyth, but it's still a work in progress.
"Just curious why it takes so long to basically put up a tin building," says Smith.
Smith is curious because he has watched construction go on next door since 2017. "With the money the taxpayers are spending, why is it taking 2 years? "
The county told us in 2017 that the project would be finished in spring of 2018, so what's the holdup?
When they started construction, they had foundation problems and trouble laying utility lines down.
Commissioner Eddie Rowland says Georgia prison inmates help with construction and scheduling gets complicated. "At times, they work on different things, and they may have to pull off of our job for awhile and then come back, so that gives us a little bit of a delay, and sometimes, weather is a delay, but we are moving forward. "
It saves the county money to have the inmates work on the project.
They say they had success using inmates on projects like the courthouse and Hubbard campus dormitory.
Rowland says, "And it also gives those guys an opportunity to learn a trade and re-enter back into society."
Commissioners voted to remove commissioner Larry Evans as supervisor off the project and put county manager Jim Hedges in charge, saying he has more time to help complete the project.
"Now that we are almost at the end and we needed to line up some general contractors, grading contractors, and he could facilitate all that, as well as procurement."
The fire station's next-door neighbor, Smith, says he's ready to see it filled with firefighters. "I mean, it's so close that if a fire breaks out at any of these houses, they will be right there."
Rowland says the county plans to have the firehouse complete by the end of the year.