El Dorado to repair street damage

EL DORADO — The El Dorado City Council has decided to use more than $800,000 to repair downtown streets that have been damaged during construction of the Murphy Arts District.

At a meeting Thursday, aldermen unanimously approved using $840,000 from street fund reserves to pay for the resurfacing of downtown streets. Streets to be repaved include parts of Cedar, Locust, Elm, Oak, Cleveland, Washington, Jefferson, Pony and Hill streets.

“As you all know, there is a huge amount of construction going on down there on their property as well as the city’s streets and other sidewalks and so forth,” Mayor Frank Hash said. “We are going to have to repair that work.”

When the 2017 budget was approved, the city did not expect to have to fix the downtown streets. Public Works Director Robert Edmonds said the funds to repair downtown streets would need to come out of the reserves if the City Council wanted to be able to repair any other city streets within the allocated budget.

Edmonds said the work would take about a week to complete after construction is finished in the district. He also noted the city could cover the repair costs while still having money in the reserves.

“We are not going to be doing this until they are completely done,” Edmonds said of the repair work.

Hash said the road work will have to be completed by the last week of August or the first week of September in order to have it ready for the annual El Dorado MusicFest in late September.

City officials noted some of the affected streets had recently been redone, while others had been under consideration for repairs.

“We did Washington around two years ago, and it has been dug up from Main clear to Timbuktu,” Hash said. “But that is the price we pay for what we hopefully will get out of this, which could be far more rewarding then we could imagine.”

Hash also warned that construction would cause a disruption for businesses along the affected streets while repairs were being done.

“I have already advised Main Street and the [El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce] of the schedule and, of course, they know it has to be done,” Hash said.

Hash also talked about resident concerns about downtown parking and said Police Chief Billy White, Fire Chief Chad Mosby and Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts are working together to create a vehicle control plan.

Aldermen said that despite the disruptions and concerns, the project could prove to be incredibly beneficial for the area.