After mulling it over for some time, this year’s state aid program will include six roads and 19 miles of road: Hebron Road, Pensacola Road, Watson-Bankston Road, Fentress-Panhandle Road, Dido Road, South Fentress Road.
Now, the roadwork has to be approved by the Office of State Aid and bidded out before work will begin. The cost of the road work will be $1.9 million dollars. Majority of that funding will come from State Aid and $700,000 will come from county funds.
After weeks of mulling over roads and how to spend the funding, the board unamimously agreed on the list in an earlier meeting.
Originally, the work was to also include Blythe Creek Road, but there’s was a bit of a disagreement on where the funding should come from.
“Blythe Creek is the worst road in the county,” Supervisor Greg Fondren said, stating that he needed to do something about the road.
Fondren said he feels that he’s been shortchanged in funding and that he’s received no funding from the House of Representatives as opposed to other supervisors. Fondren asked the board if they would be willing to foot $103,000 of the $258,000 needed to fund Blythe Creek.
This led to a brief discussion about the matter and Fondren ultimately deciding to take Blythe Creek off the list.
“So, you want me to revise it and bring it back?” Crowder asked.
After the discussion of Blythe Creek Road, Supervisor Joey Stephenson asked for an update on the Fentress-Panhandle Road.
Crowder recommended the board pay a construction estimate for $163,000 to Joe McGee Construction for work performed through April 30. He said that the company had done 37 percent of the work and used 87 percent of the time.
“The project is supposed to take 120 days and they’ve used 101. It was supposed to begin in September and he didn’t mobilize until November.”
Crowder said he cited equipment and labor issues for the delay. He said the company would go over its time and would have to pay the county $400 a day for everyday over the 120 work days allotted.
“I told him we can’t waive that and he said he understood,” Crowder said.
Supervisor Rodney Bowman asked when Crowder thought the company would be done.
“I think they’ll be done in August,” Crowder said. He said he knows there’s a bus route that’s in the area that has to go all the way around to pick up students because of the bridge closure and hopes if they’re completed it’ll be a shorter time for the route.
“I think it’ll be a nice Christmas present,” Supervisor John Shumaker said.
