Dateline: July 31, 2003

City adopts paving plan, calls for vote

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen this week called for a special election to be held September 13 for the purpose of issuing $2.5 million in certificate of obligation bonds.

City leaders took the action in a called session Monday after receiving a petition signed by 122 citizens last week, which stopped the issuance without voter approval.

The election will coincide with the state constitutional amendment election on the same day. Early voting will start on August 27.

Financial advisor Vince Viaille with First Southwest Company and city officials will begin this week to put together fact sheets about the paving program and the proposed bonds in order to better inform the public.

“I want to see us put fact sheets in the Enterprise every week in August,” said Mayor Tex Selvidge.

Viaille said his company has used a figure of 4.75 percent in his calculations for Clarendon. Interest rates are at historic lows, but Viaille said he is starting to see what he thinks is an upward trend in rates.

If approved by voters, the bonds would be used to pave and install curbs and gutters on approximately 152 blocks as mapped out in a Master Paving Plan, which was formally adopted during last Tuesday’s regular city meeting. The map is printed as a public service on the last page of this week’s Enterprise.

The plan, designed by Che Shadle of OJD Engineering, Inc., focuses on controlling runoff water.

The proposed project consists of crowning the streets, laying down two-course penetration paving, and installing curbs and gutters (defined in green on the map). The plan calls for six-inch curbs and two-foot gutters on both sides of the streets. The streets will be 31 feet wide measuring from the backs of the curbs.

The curb and gutter system serves two purposes. First, it controls and directs runoff water. Second, it protects the edge of the paving from deterioration, thereby extending the life of the paving.

On the west side of town, the project is focused on an area bounded by Third Street on the north, Cottage Street on the west, Eighth Street on the south, and connecting to Bugbee Avenue on the east. Existing paving between Bugbee Avenue and Koogle Street would be repaired and strengthened where necessary.

In the central part of town, the Master Plan focuses on an area connecting to Koogle on the west and connecting to Second Street (US 287) on the north and bounded by Eighth Street on the south and Kearney Street on the east. No work will be done to alter the brick streets.

The plan continues on the east side of town, connecting to Kearney Street and encompassing the thoroughfares bounded by Fifth Street on the north, Jackson Street on the east, Cooke Street on the south, and Gorst Street on the west.  Due to the amount of traffic on Carhart Street in that section of town, the plan calls for paving its entire length from Browning Boulevard to Second Street.

The east side section of the plan ties into a ten-block area that will be paved and curbed under emergency disaster grants through the NRCS and ORCA.

“This is the Master Plan for what we can do with $2.5 million,” Shadle said last week. “If the bids come in low, we can do more. If the bids come in high, we’ll do less; but once we hit that $2.5 million, we stop.”