Details about the city of Jackson’s infrastructure project its $40 million bond issue will fund are still being determined, according to one Jackson City Council member.
“Several months ago, the administration was focused on street repair but now they seem more focused on drainage issues,” said Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1 on the council.
“Both are real issues. We need to be sure we’re both singing from the same sheet of music.”
In April, the city council approved hiring Integrated Management Services to provide initial preliminary engineering services, including developing the general schedule for the program, identifying projects the council members wanted to see constructed with the bond funds, prioritizing the design of the projects and developing estimates of the cost.
The agreement called for paying Integrated Management Services no more than $150,000 for a term not to exceed six months unless amended.
The plan is to divide the $40 million funding among the city’s seven wards, with each receiving about $5 million. Each council member is to have a say-so in determining work that needs to be done in their wards.
Virgi Lindsay, who represents Ward 7, said $5 million will pay for some work, but “it’s not a lot of money” when it comes to improving roads or drainage.
Since the April council meeting, Foote said he has spoken with an IMS employee about the project.
“They came by and visited,” he said. “It was a general discussion. We talked about drainage and the need to do a specific list (of the work to be done).”
Foote said he would like the dollars spent in Ward 1 on street improvements.
He plans to touch base with the One Percent Sales Tax Commission, which is focusing its efforts on improving residential streets.
In 2021, the commission asked neighborhood homeowners associations to submit the names of streets in their neighborhoods that they would like resurfaced and that began the commission’s selection process. Milling and resurfacing began earlier this year on the first round of neighborhood streets.
“I want to make sure we maximize road repair,” Foote said. “There are lot of roads that haven’t been resurfaced in a long time.”
Foote said he will be disappointed “if we don’t get a lot of work done this summer and fall,” he said.
The city lacks a public works director, and Foote believes that could slow progress.
“I don’t know of any plan to come up with a public works director,” he said. “That’s a big part of the problem.”
Pete Perry, a member of the One Percent Sales Tax Commission, doubts actual road repairs will get under way this summer, considering no specifications for the projects have been written, none of the projects have been advertised for bids and no bids have been awarded.
“The city doesn’t move that fast,” he said.
Perry said $40 million can make a dent in infrastructure improvements.
To repair a city bridge costs about $250,000 to $500,000, he said.
To mill and overlay a residential street costs about $150,000 a mile, provided there is no need to make repairs to the base, he said.
Because the city of Jackson lacks a city engineer Perry wonders who will manage the infrastructure projects, review the bills and review the work of Integrated Management Services.
The bonds, authorized through the Mississippi Development Bank, for the infrastructure repair costs are set to be repaid over 16 years using at least a portion of the city’s Modernization Tax revenues. That is money city receives from its online sales tax diversions, which amount to about $10 million annually.
