Jackson selects street projects to benefit from road tax funds

Twenty-eight streets in Jackson will have potholes filled and other concrete repairs made in the upcoming year.

The available $150,000 to make the repairs comes after a lawsuit was settled between Cape Girardeau County and the city of Jackson regarding the allotment of the county road and bridge taxes. Both sides officially ended the 3-year tax battle last March.

The disagreement was over whether the county owed the city 25 percent of county road and bridge tax revenue it collected from residents of Jackson as provided in Section 137.556 of Missouri statutes. Jackson has argued since 2002 that it is due the money, while the county said the city misread the statute.

When the dispute ended last year, the county began paying Jackson its 25 percent, roughly $80,000, of the county road and bridge tax revenue. Along with the 25 percent, the county has five years to pay Jackson $350,000 in back payments, which figures to be about $70,000 per year.

"It's extremely helpful that we are getting these funds," said city administrator Jim Roach. "These are streets that probably wouldn't have been repaired this year because we wouldn't have had funding in the budget."

Jackson's public works director Rodney Bollinger said the city tries to spread the funding throughout the community to repair as many streets as possible.

"We felt it would be best spent if a handful of streets could see some benefits from the money," Bollinger said. "We don't want to isolate it to one or two roads."

In the future the city may decide to spend the county road and bridge tax allotment on one street, such as a street in Jackson's uptown, that benefits all the residents. The funds must be utilized on a transportation project.

This year, concrete repairs will be made to the following streets: Normandy Lane, Lemming Lane, Sioux Avenue, Shawnee Boulevard, Apache Avenue, Pawnee Avenue, Shady Lane, Jackson Trail, Nellie Street, North Street, Sycamore Street, Corrine Drive, Bainbridge Road, Daisy Avenue, Old Cape Road, Sue Drive, Greensferry Road, Cherokee Street, Royal Drive, Tracy Street, Maryland Street, Rebecca Street, Jessica Street, Clark Street, Tanglewood Street, Primrose Lane, Oak Street and Sunset Drive.

Total estimated cost of the repairs is $149,892. Any funds not used by the city from the road and bridge taxes will be rolled over to the next year.

"Last year and this year, the county has been very cooperative making this payment," Roach said. "There weren't any problems and we would anticipate the same in the following years to come."

After back payments are paid off to the city, Jackson will only receive approximately $80,000 per year of the county road and bridge tax.

jfreeze@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137