Oktibbeha County supervisors unanimously approved a $3.66 million, four-year road plan to guide infrastructure projects through Fiscal Year 2019 Monday, adding overlay efforts to a draft released earlier this month.
The board can modify the guiding document at any time, and additional projects could be added later this year if supervisors approve general obligation bonds for road work.
A work session on possible road bond strategies is expected next month but is not yet scheduled.
Some supervisors, including District 1’s John Montgomery, did not assign all of their expected road maintenance money for the term and are expected to add patching projects as needed.
“Getting Brown Road and Turner Road on the list — I’m proud of that. There’s certainly always more we’d like to do, but that’s what our millage does,” Montgomery said. “It’s wise, in my opinion, to leave a balance on there, because you never know what’s going to come up.”
As approved Monday, Oktibbeha County’s four-year road plan now includes district-specific FY 2016 overlay projects from first-term District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller.
The board’s first draft called for 14,046 feet of countywide overlays, but Monday’s action added 1,265 feet in combined patching for Sturgis-Maben Road and Sturgis’ Drane, South Montgomery and South Park streets.
Of the 11 upcoming overlay projects, only five will repair 1,000 or more feet of road. Those five projects include portions of Maben-Bell Schoolhouse, Poor House, Riviera and Sturgis-West Point roads.
Supervisors also added County Lake and Sun Creek roads to the list of state-aid thoroughfares in need of repairs.
Work to shore up County Lake Road is set to begin soon after supervisors unanimously approved Cadamy Contracting’s $693,324 bid to handle approximately 800 feet of slope repairs at Oktibbeha County Lake.
County Engineer Clyde Pritchard previously said rapid drawdowns of the lake’s water level had washed away a portion of the levee, on which County Lake Road runs, and future drawdowns could wash a portion of the road into the lake.
Residents of A.W. Williams, Brown and Summertree roads will see paving projects begin along portions of their respective gravel corridors in the next two fiscal years, while portions of Cedar Grove, Harrell, Pat Station, Perkins, St. Mark and Walter Well roads are scheduled to be paved in FY 2018 and 2019.
In all, Oktibbeha County’s four-year road plan schedules 10.23 miles of paving gravel roads this term.
While paving projects are outlined through the end of the term, road building, overlay, reclamation and reseal efforts dwindle past the upcoming fiscal year.
Supervisors plan on combined 6.2-mile reclamation and 6.37-mile building efforts through FY 2018, but the four-year guidepost does not list entries for either type of project in FY 2018 and FY 2019. Oktibbeha County will overlay about half of a mile of Starkville’s Airport Road and reseal a similar swath of Turner Road in FY 2017, but both categories are not listed for action in FY 2018 and 2019.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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