City, county
to replace Chulahoma Ave. bridge
By SUE
WATSON
Staff Writer
The City of
Holly Springs and Marshall County are partnering to
replace the bridge at Chulahoma Avenue.
The bridge
was closed Thursday by order of the Holly Springs Board
of Aldermen. It is located in the city limits, but the
road is a main thoroughfare for traffic going to and from
the city.
Work is
expected to take 30 to 45 days to complete as opposed to
six months if the project was bid out, according to Larry
Hall, county road manager and administrator.
County and
city leaders opted to team up and fix the bridge now at
the local governments’ expense.
The bridge
was scheduled and approved as a project in the
Mississippi Department of Transportation’s state-aid
fund, but federal, and therefore state dollars, are
coming in at a trickle, according to Larry Britt, county
engineer, causing the postponement of funding from MDOT.
The board of
supervisors passed three motions – to clear the way
for county road department crews to mobilize manpower to
do drainage and site work; to pass a local and private
bill between the two governments declaring the job an
emergency; and to give county administrators authority to
use county crews to demolish the old structure and
realign the creek with the road.
The city
will have a contractor come in and drive steel pilings
and lay pre-cut cement surface slabs, Hall said.
The board
also discussed setting up detour signs in the county
roads feeding into Chulahoma Street from the west.
Supervisors may post weight limits for large trucks on
Peyton Road to keep heavy truck traffic from tearing up
that road. Peyton, Marianna and Bicycle Road will be
alternate routes for school buses and other traffic.
Other county
road work is going slow due to weather, according to
Hall. Repairs of potholes caused by snow and ice and
other means will pick up as weather allows.
In other
business taken up Monday, the board:
- discussed
a zoning board decision concerning the use of a
property zoned residential as a lot for the
storage and sale of used vehicles. The property
is located on Goodman Road.
Supervisors Keith Taylor and Willie Flemon were
opposed to allowing the action of the zoning
board to allow the continued use of the property
for a business purpose without proper permitting.
Flemon argued that zoning and land use controls
should be fairly and equitably enforced. The
board approved a cease and desist (stop selling)
order to be sent by letter to the property owner
while the board considers whether to uphold the
zoning board’s decision in the matter.
- read
and approved the claims docket. Chancery Clerk
Chuck Thomas said the county spent 24.5 percent
of its budget in the first quarter of the fiscal
year.
County
expenditures in January totalled $530,000 with
$142,000 of that going to purchase a fire truck.
The fire truck expenditures will be reimbursed
from fire grant monies.
- authorized
application for a solid waste cleanup grant of
$11,920. Hall said the money will be used to
clean up existing and future trash dumps, to
establish a collection center for white goods,
and other clean-up needs.
- recessed
until February 14 at 9 a.m. The board meets at
103b Market Street on the first, second and
fourth Monday of each month, unless a meeting is
rescheduled.
Report News:
(662) 252-4261 or south@dixie-net.com
Questions, comments, corrections: south@dixie-net.com
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