Lowndes County supervisors on Monday approved paving the Coretta Street entrance to the Columbus Soccer Complex over Moore’s Creek.
Funding for the project will come from the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority’s budget and will not exceed $12,000. For a two-inch asphalt surface with slag and clay gravel, county road manager Ronnie Burns said the project can probably be completed for less than that amount by the end of this month, weather permitting. Road crews began work on the project this morning, he said.
Tombigbee River Valley Water Management District has completed installing culverts at the Coretta Street extension, county administrator Ralph Billingsley said. The portion of the connection from Highway 82 up to the creek is virtually complete, Burns said.
If the entrance is completed on schedule, it will be re-opened in time for the Coaches Cup, which the complex is slated to host in November.
Supervisors also agreed to buy a $25,000, 5-acre piece of land near Renon Lane and Buck Egger Road that will be used to relocate that intersection.
Citing safety issues due to the residential road entrance’s location at the bottom of a hill’s crest, supervisors initially asked county engineer Bob Calvert to appraise the property and ask its owner to allow the county to purchase the right-of-way. That way, the road department could relocate the entrance about 500 feet down from the crest. Board president Harry Sanders said he’d heard complaints from Caledonia school bus drivers about the potential of a serious accident if a motorist came over the hill too fast to stop in time to avoid striking a bus.
The money will come from the county’s road department budget, but there is already clay gravel on site that could be used to build the new entrance’s base. The only additional cost for the road department would be to purchase asphalt, Sanders said. That would likely happen early next summer. The board approved an extra $500,000 for the road department in the 2013-14 fiscal year budget.
Board approves in-kind services for Crawford
A large-scale sewage overhaul in the town of Crawford will soon be closed out with in-kind assistance from Lowndes County road crews.
After tabling a request last week to give Burns time to evaluate the project, supervisors agreed to clear a piece of property of rotting trees to create an access road into a pump station. The initial request was for about $13,000 in services, but Sanders said the county will only have to pay $1,000 for wash and clay gravel to create the access road, and the project can be done in house.
Crawford Mayor Fred Tolon, who came before the board last week requesting services, estimated the quality-of-life project at about $800,000.
In other business, the board:
■ Authorized Billingsley to apply for a Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) grant for the Columbus-Lowndes Airport. The 90/10 matching grant would fund mandatory flight checks from the Federal Aviation Administration on the already-installed PAPIs so they can be used. The county and city of Columbus would each pay $254.35 of the $5,082.70 fee for the checks if the application is accepted;
■ Requested Tennessee River Valley Waste Management District to clear Unity Creek of debris on the behalf of the Caledonia Board of Aldermen.
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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