By Nathan Prewett
For the Tribune
ARGO — Continuing a discussion on a grant from APPLE to upgrade roads, the Argo City Council held a discussion on how the funds would be applied to the project at a meeting on Tuesday night.
Photo by Nathan Prewett.
Councilor Tony Aldredge said that he and Argo Mayor Betty Bradley met with Civil Consultants about and the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham about funding. A suggestion was made that funding be split between federal and local/state, in which federal would pay 80 percent and local would pay five percent while state would pay 15 percent.
“Beginning in fiscal year 2019, and really it needs to start now as far as funding,” Aldredge said. “But the breakdown would be that the city of Argo would be responsible for I think it was $35,000 a year, from now to fiscal year 2025, 2026. Basically in seven years we would budget $35,000 every year, set it aside and break it down into different places – you got engineering and you got construction.”
He said that for that estimated amount they would be able to have a three or four lane section on Highway 11, improvements to Argo Parkway as well as to the intersection of Argo Margaret Road. He said that if the council agrees to pay $35,000 a year, they would still have to go the county and “other municipalities” for help.
“I don’t know if we’ll get another opportunity like this,” said Bradley. “If we don’t do this, if we just let it pass us by – we know that more houses are being built everyday in Margaret and our surrounding neighbors. I mean we still may not be able to come up with the money, we’ve still got to go to the county like Tony said and try to get them to come up. What he has estimated is that the county would pay $280,000, the city of Argo pays $280,000; federal, state and ALDOT pays over a period of that many years.”
The possibility of asking Margaret and Springville for help was mentioned but Bradley said that they may not be able to spend funds out of their budgets.
“Getting back to resurfacing projects – all this is leading up to some of us wanting to cut the resurfacing and keep that money to go towards this $35,000,” said Councilor Gordon (Corkey) Massey. “We promised for two years to all these people that we were going to resurface their roads and I can’t see me saying no, especially when some of these others have been paved at a higher cost.”
Councilor Ann Brown suggested looking at the most traveled roads in Argo and “start spending our money there and patch what we need to on the roads that we can afford resurface, but we need to look at the big picture.”
Discussion turned to balancing resurfacing projects with other city projects, including improvements to city hall and the construction of the storm shelter. City Attorney Scott Barnett suggested outlining a letter asking neighboring municipalities and the county commission for assistance.
Massey made a motion to authorize $102,000 to proceed with resurfacing work. The motion passed with all in favor except for Bradley.
The burn permit ordinance and fees were discussed again. This was a matter that was brought up by Argo Fire Chief Heath Smith in prior meetings. Massey made a motion to push passing an ordinance until the next meeting so that Councilor Ronnie Bowman can attend as he was absent from tonight’s meeting.
Massey raised concerns that a burn ordinance would conflict with the trash and tree limb pickups that he said were supposed to have happened already. He said that he has received complaints about limbs or fallen trees not being picked up, prompting some people to dump them if they can’t burn them or have them hauled off.
The matter was tabled for the next meeting on June 4 where a workshop session will be held at 6 p.m.
The council will also further discuss the sign ordinance that has been brought up by Bradley in past meetings. Massey and Councilor Ann Brown have been overseeing ways to form an ordinance that would regulate signs being put up in the city.
Cowan and Massey said that they have been looking at ordinances passed in other cities, including one from Ashville. Barnett advised highlighting what they think would be the best elements of the Ashville ordinance and put it to a draft to be considered.
In other business the council:
- Accepted and paid Cork, Hill and Company for the audit of fiscal year 2016-2017;
- Implemented a “Back to School” sales tax holiday for July and
- Passed a resolution conforming to a recent state law regarding people with vicious dogs.
The next Argo City Council meeting will be held on June 4 at 6 p.m.
