City Gets $2.5 Million For Streets

 City Gets $2.5 Million For Streets

BOBBY ARDOIN

Editor/Consulting Writer

The Opelousas city administration and Board of Aldermen members are scheduled to begin discussions that will determine which municipal streets will receive improvements from $2.5 million obtained from state capital outlay funding.

At this point Mayor Julius Alsandor has compiled a priority list and cost estimates for streets that he considers candidates for reconstruction, the Board was told on Tuesday night by city engineer William Jarrell III.

Neither Jarrell nor Alsandor indicated during the meeting which streets have been designated by the mayor as needing restoration.

Now it is up to the Board and Alsandor to meet individually and conclude where to spend the money, Jarrell said.

Jarrell noted that there is not enough funding contained within the capital outlay award to repair all the streets on the inventory agenda compiled by Alsandor.

The city would need at least $6 million to cover the costs of repairs for all the streets that Alsandor thinks now require refurbishing, Jarrell indicated.

Alderman-at-large Marvin Richard suggested that each election district could receive at least one street or roadway section that would be included in the revenues that will be used for the proposed project.

Meeting Funding Deadlines

Jarrell said it is important for Alsandor and the Board to soon begin deciding which streets will be included in the repair project.

“If you don’t meet the deadline (for spending the capital outlay funding) there is a chance that you will lose the money. There is no real hard deadline, but in Baton Rouge, they don’t like to see a pot of money not being used,” Jarrell said.

Once the streets that qualify for the project have been designated, Jarrell said he can begin with required engineering surveys.

“We can’t do (the surveys) until we can define the scope of the project,” Jarrell said.

 Infrastructure Considerations

Jarrell added that his conversations with Alsandor germane to the project have included preliminary cost estimates, as well as the potential above and below street level conditions of the roads that will be considered for repairs.

“The service lines (for water and sewerage) will be taken into consideration for any of the streets,” Jarrell said.

Alsandor reminded the Aldermen that the conditions of water and sewer lines were included in a previous municipal street repair project that occurred on a section of roadway from North Market Street to Martin Luther King Drive.

Lena Charles, who spoke at the meeting, asked the Aldermen to consider repairing sections of Church Street.