County grant for roadwork may not come
Published 12:07am Tuesday, September 18, 2012NATCHEZ — Chances don’t look great for Adams County to receive the grant for which the board of supervisors took out a $650,000 loan to serve as match money earlier this year.
When Supervisor Angela Hutchins asked Southwest Planning and Development District Planner Allen Laird for an update on the grant application, Laird said the county had not been selected for a site visit.
“Generally, that means it will not get funded, but they have not sent formal letters out yet,” Laird said. “Some of the sites they have deemed worthy (of funding) have not accepted yet, so they might come back (to Adams County).”
The infrastructure Community Development Block Grant the supervisors had applied for was a competitive one, Laird said, which probably received 80 or 90 applications statewide. Laird said he expected only 30 of those applications would be funded.
The process of getting funds awarded is not over, however, and Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said the board would make some phone calls to lobby for their cause.
“I’m not sure how effective that is going to be, but it can’t hurt to try,” he said.
The loan the supervisors took out in August was earmarked for road projects, and was meant to serve as a 50-percent match should the county be awarded the grant.
When the supervisors took out the loan, they said the funds would be used for roadwork regardless of the grant, and gathered a list of 10 roads — two from each district — that needed work.
Grennell said no plan for when the roadwork will begin has been set, though it would not likely be until spring.
“We have not yet set a plan on when that might be because today was the first possible indicator (about the grant),” he said.
In other news, the supervisors agreed to keep a meeting they had set with the Mississippi Forestry Commission about potential aid the commission could provide the county in fighting wildfires.
The meeting was originally scheduled when the supervisors were facing the possibility of having to form a fire protection district to respond to fires outside the Natchez city limits, but the supervisors decided to go forward with it despite reaching an agreement with the City of Natchez for fire protection because they believed the commission — which stopped providing aid for wildfires after the Natchez Fire Department stopped reporting wildfire statistics — can help the county.
In other news:
• The supervisors voted to authorize Grennell and Sheriff Chuck Mayfield to execute the interlocal agreement that forms Metro Narcotics for another year.
• The board voted to authorize Grennell to execute two contracts with SWPDD regarding drainage work on Pineview Drive and Cloverdale Road.
• The board authorized Road Manager Robbie Dollar to clean up an illegal dump site on Cottage Farm Road.
• After a public hearing with no public comment, the board voted to clean up a nuisance property at 35 Col. John Pitchford Road.
