City prepares for annual street paving program
By Randy Bell
A single set of eyes has determined which streets in Clinton were recommended for resurfacing this year. And the Board of Aldermen at its May 16 meeting voted to advertise for bids to do the paving, after some debate about whether three parking lots and a street at Traceway Park should be included.
A Public Works employee was assigned the job of rating each of the approximately seven hundred named streets which stretch for about one hundred eighty miles across the city to determine the chosen few which will get a fresh coat of asphalt.
“One person rides the streets,” said Consulting City Engineer Bill Owen. “The reason we have one person is that we want them to look at every street in the same way.”
Owen said streets are rated on about ten different criteria, some of which are weighted more heavily. They include rutting and “alligator cracking,” which is pavement with multiple cracks allowing moisture to seep in.
The City has about $945,000 to spend on the street improvements which include:
• Meadow Hill Drive from Old Vicksburg Road to Arlington Street (Ward 6)
• Hood Drive from West Virginia Drive to the cul-de-sac (Ward 2)
• Gloucester Place from Melrose Place back to Melrose Place (Ward 6)
• Navajo Circle from Apache Court back to Apache Court (Ward 3)
• Pineview Drive from Laurelwood Drive to Beverly Drive (Ward 3)
• Baseball Alley from Cynthia Road to Softball Circle (Ward 3)
Additionally, the paving program will include Baseball-Softball Parking Lot #6, Baseball-Softball Parking Lot #3 and Soccer Row Parking Lot #1, all at Traceway Park.
Ward 2 Alderman Jim Martin tried unsuccessfully to convince his fellow Board members to remove the Traceway paving to allow for more streets to be resurfaced.
“I just had a hard time saying that a parking lot is the same thing as paving our streets,” Martin said, while agreeing that the lots are in bad shape. He proposed pulling some of the parks and recreation revenue from Clinton’s two per cent restaurant tax to resurface the parking lots and Baseball Alley at Traceway.
“I thought I came up with a proposal that would have worked, but the majority of the Board disagreed,” said Martin.
Clinton Soccer Association board member Corey Wolfe said the streets within the park “are in dire need” of resurfacing.
“A lot of our folks in Clinton are using these roads weekly,” said Wolfe. “[And for] our guests, visitors coming into the city of Clinton, a place like Traceway is their first impression of the rest of the town.”
