The Sunflower County Board of Supervisors voted on Monday to temporarily close Goose Lake Road, Smith-Murphey Road and Sleepy Martin Road in District 5 to protect and preserve them. Road Manager Todd Rickles said they are basically farm roads and landowners have requested the closures and he agrees with the requests because sometimes the roads get torn up during the wet winter months and it takes road workers until July to get them straight.
Board Attorney Johnny McWilliams said if anybody is inconvenienced by the closings they should get in touch with the county administrator to be placed on the agenda to present their case.
The supervisors also voted to sign a letter agreeing to participate with South Delta Planning and Development in carrying out brown-field assessments. The agency is applying for the 2018 Brown-Field Coalition Assessment grant, which will allow them to conduct assessments on areas that have the appearance of being contaminated by hazardous materials or petroleum products, which is the definition of a brown-field.
An agency representative told the board that there are specific sites already designated but asked them to identify other possible locations. She said the SDPD is seeking the grant because the grant prohibits the owners of properties to assess their own sites.
She said they are asking all of the cities in the county to take part, so far Moorhead has agreed and they are also asking six counties to participate. There is a clean-up grant available if remediation or cleanup is required.
President Glenn Donald also asked if there are grant monies available that would provide lighting for the Eastmoor Subdivision in Moorhead.
In other business they,
Voted, on Ron Cassada’s recommendation, to award the bids on the two bridges that were received from McBrideCo, LLC of Batesville and voted to re-advertise for the Sunflower Road bridge project, which no one bid on. Cassada suggested that maybe a change order could possibly be done but McWilliams said he didn’t feel comfortable about just doing a “change order” he suggested rebidding the project since no one bid on it.
Cassada said that because every county in the state is now doing what this county is—repairing bridges, the cost of materials and labor is going up because of the demand.
Voted to take bids for an asphalt paving machine – Thompson Caterpillar base cash price $152,315.58 and an asphalt double wheel steel roller machine – Thompson Caterpillar base cash price $104,435.06, under advisement. Thompson was the only bidder.
Voted to appoint Jean Cummins to the vacant seat on the library board for District 5.
Will conduct a jail inspection on Nov. 20 at 8 a.m.