Newton County supervisors are planning to send three applications to the Office of State Aid Road Construction to give the county the best shot at receiving part of the $250 million bond issue the Legislature took out for road and bridge repairs.
In a regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 5, County Engineer Duane Stanford told the board applications would be available Thursday, with the deadline set some time in December. After discussing what bridges to include in the application, it was agreed Stanford would examine 14 bridges and bring a recommendation to the board. County supervisors and Stanford continued that discussion in a regular board meeting Thursday morning.
“I’ve made a list of bridges below 50 rating,” Stanford said, adding bridge integrity is rated on a 1-100 scale, with a 100 rating being brand new, perfect condition.
On the list, were four closed bridges, bridges needing new pylons and several bridges in needing to be completely replaced.
According to the paperwork for the funding applications, Stanford said the Office of State Aid Road Construction is prioritizing closed bridges. However, he said, the county can submit as many applications as it wants.
“I guess what we need to do is put the closed bridges on one application,” he said.
With $250 million, he said, there isn’t enough money for all the closed bridges in Mississippi, but it won’t hurt the county to apply.
“Why don’t we put the ones that’s closed on there and the ones that need new pylons,” Supervisor Joe Alexander asked. “We’ve got these four closed we need to do something with yesterday.”
Board President Charles Moulds said the supervisors needed to come up with something to put on the application. After discussing the applications on three occasions, he said they were still kicking around the same ideas.
With only $250 million to spend across Mississippi, Moulds said chance are the county isn’t going to get half of what it asks for. He said he thought they should apply, but overthinking it wasn’t helpful.
“Anything we do is going to be a shot in the dark,” he said.
After several amended motions, the board agreed to send in three applications. The first, and highest priority, application, would be funding for the four closed bridges - Newton Calhoun, Pleasant Ridge, Prospect Cedar and Greenville – with full replacement bridges on Liberty Church Road and Hickory Fellowship Road tacked on.
The second application would request funding for replacing pylons on county bridges. While not closed, around 10 bridges in the county have rotted or damaged timber pylons that need to be replaced.
Stanford said replacing pylons is a fairly simple process once funding is secured.
“You take the deck off, drive the pylons and put the deck back on,” he said.
The third application, which would be viewed as a low priority application, would include bridges that need to be demolished and completely rebuilt.
Stanford said the Office of State Aid plans to review applications in December, with funds becoming available in January. Also, he said, his impression was that more funding would be made available later. Even if the county misses out on part of the $250 million bond issue, he said they may still receive funding further down the road.
