Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Mayor plans pavaing, playground equipment and a walking trail

Gurdon Mayor Clayton Franklin realizes revenues are projected as tight" for the upcoming year, as sales tax collections were down a little in 2004, but he is planning to finish the street paving project, install at least one new piece of playground equipment at the city park, and continue trying to get the walking trail grant to come through.

On the budget, Tambra Childres, recorder and treasurer, said the 2004 projections for the overall city budget collections, counting existing funds at the time, were approximately $1,064,000. A figure for actual collections should be available by the Monday, Jan. 17, City Council meeting.

Childres said approximately $250,000 was already in the bank before the rest was projected to be collected to add the two and make the total.

Franklin said his main goal continues to be to clean up the City of Gurdon and make it a better place to live.

"We've got at least 12 more streets to pave and the money is there for that," Franklin said. "Plus, the state of Arkansas Highway Department will be finishing the paving of Highway 53 through town and that will help.

"With last year's street paving, our spring project and the state's paving, the completion of these efforts will give us as good or better streets as any small town in Arkansas."

In specific, the total bond issue for 16 streets where paving was completed last year, plus the minimum of 12 more planned for 2005, was $664,300 to spend on the improvements. Last year's efforts totaled more than six miles of paving.

Franklin said the cost of the first phase was $371,643. Funds available for the second phase are $292,657.

Although Franklin said Jett Asphalt out of El Dorado got the bid for Phase I "and I was very happy with their work," the bidding process for a low bidder to do Phase II will begin in March.

"We will have to take new bids for a company to do Phase II," Franklin said. "It needs to be done by March so we have time to complete the streets in 2005. I would have no problem with Jett again, but we must go through the process to get the low bid."

Franklin said the streets of Gurdon had not been overlaid anew for at least 15 years before these projects got under way.

Franklin said the longer streets, and ones requiring considerable preparation for overlay, were behind them.

"The remaining streets will take a two-inch overlay and very little preparation work. We will finish the culvert work and prep work on our own," he said. "We have learned that damp weather doesn't bother these projects nearly as much as temperature changes. So we will be working in the milder temperatures."

As to the Phase I asphalt overlay project, Franklin said the asphalt was $51.75 a ton, with 7,184.3 tons going on 16 streets.

The 16 Gurdon streets already paved are: East Maple, Front Street, Smithton Road, 10th Street, Crayton Street, 5th Street, 2nd Street, West Maple, Haynie Road, Joslyn Street, Deer Creek, West Pine, East Pine, Kansas Road, Red Springs Road and Bowen Hill Road.

As to what is left for this year, the mayor said there may be enough asphalt to do more, but these 12 are on top priority; South First Street, West South Street, the group of Charlotte Drive, Martha Lane, Turtle Creek and Martha Court, Beech Street (6th to 10th Streets), East Joslyn Street (Highway 53 to 10th Street), Clark Street (Highway 53 to 10th Street), Old Whelen Road (city limit to South Street), Carrie Street Loop (South Street to Highway 53), Cherry Street (South First to city limits, Taylor Dairy Road), North First (Cherry Street to End), North Front (West Maple to last house), and Calley Road (Highway 67 to end of the road).

Franklin told Street Superintendent Jim Caldwell that cost projections on these streets need to be further evaluated.

"I believe we may have enough to do even more. These streets are going to be a lot easier than the longer ones last fall," the mayor said.

Franklin said the walking trail grant should come through sometime this year and the new playground equipment for the park will be addressed in warmer weather.

"Our finances mean we cannot really plan anymore big projects for the year," he said. "We just want to hold the line and not lose any of our city services. We will continue with our clean-up project. We are testing some of the clean-up citations through our courts to find out if we can clean up things ourselves or we must convince the landowners to do it."

Franklin said he would also like to see more retail businesses come into the downtown, which would produce more revenue for city improvements.

"Of course, any expansion of our economic base in the area would be good. Although I am not on the board, I am a member of the Clark County Industrial Committee. To my knowledge, no new businesses are considering coming here at this time. Work in recent years has been toward filling up old business facilities where someone left, such as the Goodrich plant building at Gum Springs. But plants here lately seem to be more inclined to expand to other areas  such as Mexico."

In addition to Gum Springs building, Franklin said tenants are needed at the old Hot Metal Molding plant and the old Wal-mart building at Arkadelphia.

The mayor said the CCIC was at a funding disadvantage compared to surrounding counties where there is sales tax revenue earmarked as operating money.

"I believe our CCIC director is actually funded some through Henderson State University," he said.