The Gloucester County Board of Supervisors will hold its organizational meeting for 2013 on Wednesday, Jan. 2, beginning at 7 p.m. in the colonial courthouse.

Members of the board of supervisors will start out the meeting by appointing a new chair and vice chair for 2013 before moving on to regular agenda items, which includes a discussion and resolution authorizing design and bidding of the county’s emergency operations center (EOC) build-out.

The board of supervisors voted in June 2010 to design a new emergency communications center (ECC) with an underlying shell space intended to be an EOC with future availability of funds.

In March 2011, the board authorized the county administrator to award the construction contract to build the ECC with underlying EOC shell space.

Gloucester’s director of public works Garrey Curry said with the ECC project now complete and the shell available, public works staff has provided an estimated build-out cost of $635,000, which includes furnishing and technology to convert the vacant shell into a functioning EOC. Curry said one possible source of funding is the board’s capital fund reserve.

Curry said design aspects of the EOC have been approved by both the sheriff and the county’s emergency management coordinator.

Exterior work, he said, includes expanding the parking lot to accommodate the additional usage from an EOC, while interior work includes everything necessary to up-fit the existing shell to occupied space.

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