Jackson to decide on plan for new road cash

The Jackson Board of Aldermen and city officials have found themselves holding a $150,000 pot of money, thanks to a road and bridge tax settlement with Cape Girardeau County.

This $150,000 is taxpayer money, funds that have come out of property and real estate taxes from the residents of Jackson. It must go toward road and bridge improvements in the city.

How should they spend it?

The latest thought is to do citywide concrete street repairs.

The city has changed its mind twice on the issue, but will likely make an official decision at tonight's regular meeting.

In December last year, the Jackson Board of Aldermen pared a list down to four prioritized street projects: the reconstruction of East Washington Street from North Hope Street to North Ohio Street; reconstruction of North Hope Street from Mary Street to Greensferry Road; an asphalt overlay of Greensferry Road to North Hope Street; and concrete repairs on West Jackson Trail from Hope Street to Lee Avenue. The total estimated cost of those four projects came to $506,000, a little more than the $471,904 which was awarded to the city by Associate Judge Byron Luber in August.

Since then, the county and city came to a settlement. The county is to pay the city $350,000 in five yearly installments in addition to the roughly $80,000 allotment required by statute. That comes to about $150,000 every year for the next five years.

At last Monday night's study session, city officials and aldermen discussed how to spend this year's settlement money. And it was discussed and unofficially agreed upon that the city would fix West Jackson Trail with the money.

The road serves mainly industrial traffic as well as employees to a few office buildings.

But by the end of the meeting, a couple of aldermen had a change of thought. They approached city administrator Jim Roach about spreading the money throughout the entire city instead of putting in all into one road.

Since then, other board members have agreed.

"We've got a lot of repairs that need to be done," said alderman Joe Bob Baker. "And we might get more bang for our buck that way."

Alderman David Reiminger agreed.

"We have done some street repairs, some grinding, and patching of cracks to prolong the life of streets," Reiminger said. "And we'd like to do that all over town. The public sees more that way, they see that the city is protecting the investments that we have."

Roach said he is more comfortable with the concrete repair decision. He said the city will repair Jackson Trail, but there may be some alternatives to tearing up the entire street and rebuilding it again.

He said he believes that many overloaded trucks drive on the road and he said he'd like to see better enforcement of freight weight laws.

The aldermen will likely approve a list of concrete street repairs at tonight's regular meeting.

The streets include: Greensferry, Nellie, Bunker, Lakewood, Bainbridge, Sioux, Pawnee, East Main, West Adams, Normandy Lane, Sue, Rebecca, North, Mulberry, Wedgewood, Old Cape, South Shawnee, Shady, Leming, Broadridge, Oak, Briarwood, Clark, Sycamore, Ridge, Litz, Corinne, Apache, Lee, West Jefferson, East, Greenleaf and Drew.

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635