According to Henderson City Manager Ray Griffin, the widening of Beckford Drive has been on the city’s agenda since 2002.
Griffin made his remarks during Monday’s meeting of the Henderson City Council.
Council member Mike Inscoe called the four year-old earmark a “grant with a history behind it”. He said that the grant money for the project that includes curb, guttering, and sidewalks had been requested in 2002 and 2003 and was finally awarded in 2005 in the amount of $960,000.
According to Inscoe, the match can be paid out of Powell Bill funds. Powell Bill funds are monies awarding to municipal governments for the maintenance of roads and sidewalks.
The local match to the apparently still-valid allotment is $206,000.
Inscoe said that the project would be good for economic development and made reference to the new construction in the area as well as traffic to and from the city’s operations center. He said that he thinks the project will help the city with economic development in the area. He went on to say that the project would not affect money budgeted in this fiscal year for Powell Bill street improvements.
Member Lonnie Davis, a member of the council in 2002, recalled that the funds were obtained through the efforts of the Ferguson Group. He also stated that the project was put on hold because of the matching funds requirement.
Council member Garry Daeke asked what the balance of Powell Bill funds would be after the match was made. He asked if there would be money for sidewalk repairs in the spring [of 2009]. Member Mike Rainey echoed Daeke’s concerns.
Inscoe responded that $250,000 has been budgeted for street repair this year. Assistant City Manager Frank Frazier added that he hoped the list of streets to be repaired can be expanded if the cost of asphalt stays down.
Griffin told Daeke that the total reserve of the Powell Bill funds is $406,000. He said that although it could be budgeted incrementally (with 1/2 transferred in fiscal 2008 and the balance transferred in 2009) that he would prefer to make the transfer all at once. Griffin argued that transferring the money in one block would mean that there would be no questions about the city meeting its local requirement. He said that the funds would not be used all at once, and in the event of “a dire need” could be cross-transferred back.
Noting that the city currently has $10 million in requests to the federal government for the water system, Griffin went on to tell members that “good diligence on how we deal with earmarks on this project will be heard as other funding requests are considered in Washington”.
Griffin said that he “would like to leave a good impression that Henderson is ready to work.”
A resolution to accept the grant passed unopposed, as did a budget for the project.