The Douglas County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Sept. 17 to enter into a $610,000 lease-purchase agreement with Yancey Caterpillar for four pieces of heavy construction equipment used for paving subject to final financing options to be determined.

The action, which had been tabled for further discussion since Sept. 4, is to replace expended 30-year-old machinery used for county resurfacing projects, according to County Administrator Eric Linton.

County Department of Transportation director Randy Hulsey prepared a report for the commissioners outlining the cost-saving benefits of replacing the worn equipment and addressing concerns that hiring additional county transportation staff might be necessary.

Cost savings by obtaining new paving equipment would reduce the dependency on contractor resurfacing by allowing current Douglas County transportation employees to assume a greater share of resurfacing residential roads, Hulsey explained.

“No additional staff will be needed to implement this program,” Hulsey told commissioners.

Hulsey reported conservative cost savings from the lease-purchase for 2013 could be around $200,000.

In other business, the board approved an amendment to the Douglas County Code of Ordinances requested by Cobb-Douglas Public Health to add “body art” and “hand watering with gray water” ordinances.

According to Chris Hutcheson with the public health department, there were no regulations on the practice of body art until 2010.

State law already regulates the construction, permitting, and operation of body art establishments. Body art practices include physical body adornment by means of tattooing, body piercing, or permanent cosmetics, according to the Cobb-Douglas Public Health.

Explaining the definition of “gray water,” Hutcheson said it meant wastewater generated from residential sinks, bathtubs, showers, clothes washers and laundry trays.

Basically, the ordinance states that private residential use of gray water shall be used within the property boundary for household gardening, composting, lawn watering or landscape irrigation.

Hand watering requires that its distribution can only be done by watering cans or similar hand-held containers.

Gray water should be free of hazardous chemicals and not for the watering of food plants.

The board also gave authorization to amend the public defender’s dues and subscriptions line item by $7,500 to cover expenditures for the remainder of 2012.

These items include bar association dues, law books, evidence codes and online web law, which County Attorney Ken Bernard called “a necessary expenditure” the public defender’s office needs to do its job.