Junction City to undertake re-pavement project

Expanding the road construction project was a hot topic at Junction City Council meeting Thursday.

With the recent completion of the city’s grant-funded re-pavement project for several streets including Elm Street, East First Street, Hickory Street and a portion of Plum Street, Junction City Council members began discussing the possibility of expanding on the project at their June meeting.

The new project would be funded with a local 1 cent tax that was approved to improve the town’s roads. This fund has been gaining a little more than $5,000 a month and is currently sitting at a balance of $329,000.

Last month, Mayor Allen Simmons suggested the council take $225,000 from that fund and start putting it toward city streets, which the council agreed to look into. A committee consisting of Councilman Darryl Holiday, Councilman Paul Enis and Councilmen James Warren was formed to drive through the area and determine which streets to attend to first.

The committee reported that Beech Street needed the most work. The street is used by school buses on a daily basis, along with several others that are in terrible condition.

“(Beech street) needs to be the first one done,” Simmons said.

At the meeting Thursday, Simmons presented the council with two options from companies who gave estimates on repaving the three most deteriorated streets.

One of the estimates was from

the Union County Highway Department for $230,050, which was the cheaper of the two as the town would only be charged for materials. However, the department was unable to give an estimate of when crews would be able to start working on the roads.

Simmons said there have been several county roads that had suffered damages because of flooding in the county and the department is swamped with other work.

The Union County Highway Department supervisor “said that he could not give us a time at all. It would just be when they could get to it. It may be next spring before they could get to it,” Simmons said.

C&F Construction, out of Smackover, provided the other estimate of $265,000, however that included labor costs, and said they could start in October.

“I make a motion to get someone to overlay the streets, not exceeding $225,000, as far as we can go, by whoever gets to it first,” said Councilman Steve Williams.

The motion was unanimously approved and council members said the community will be kept up to date.