Commission Discusses Roads

The Jasper County Commissioners met Monday evening for a work session on budget and roads, and ended up mainly hearing about roads from the county manager, Mike Benton, and Public Works Director Preston Campbell.

Mr. Benton provided a handout that showed the roads scheduled for Jasper County Chip Seal Resurfacing in 2018. It is 12 roads totaling 3.6 miles. Mr. Benton said more would be done as supplies, manpower and funding lasts.

He also told commissioners about the Georgia Department of Transportation striping and signage project scheduled for next year. The county had to submit a letter of interest by Tuesday. Mr. Benton showed that it is some $475,350 worth of work the DOT will provide.

He also said they had completed replacing the bridge floor on Pitts Chapel Road Bridge and the Old Agateville Road bridge. In addition the floor of the River Road bridge will be replaced next month.

He also reviewed how he plans to fix the bridge issue on Barr Bridge, work that is scheduled for May or June of this year. He also said he was going to look into GDOT plans for replacing the bridges on Post Road. Lastly, they discussed briefly the Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds. He wanted direction if they are going to move forward on another 2.5 miles of Post Road or do something different. They agreed to discuss that in their next meeting, Monday, April 30 or their regular meeting on May 7.

For the budget, Mr. Benton provided one more sheet for the budget notebook, showing where the requested increases are. Also at Monday’s meeting was the newly-hired finance director, Dennis Pate, who will help Mr. Benton with the budgeting. They anticipate having more figures available by next Monday when the commissioners have a work session on the budget.