The Attala County Board of Supervisors is beginning to discuss plans for county improvements — which could include more road and bridge work — in hopes of securing potential state funding that could come from the upcoming 2022 legislative session.
County Engineer Christian Gardner recently encouraged the board to begin looking at projects they would like to complete. According to Gardner, District 18 Sen. Jenifer Branning recently met with the Montgomery County supervisors and encouraged them to form a resolution and prioritize projects needing completion before the 2022 legislative session begins. After learning this, Gardner advised the Attala County Supervisors to heed the same warning and begin preparing for opportunities to receive more state funding in 2022.
“I just want to start having that conversation because the next time y'all see me, it’ll be the first of the year and the session will be starting. And we don't need to be doing this in March. We need to have y’all some stuff in your hands in the early or mid-part of January so you can get it to your state legislators,” Gardner told the supervisors. “Hopefully, I don't know what they are going to send where or how much, but you certainly don't want to have been sitting here and not have asked for anything when everybody else did. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but the rumor mill is there’s a lot of money out there.”
Board President and Beat Five Supervisor Tim Pinkard asked Gardner if some roads and bridges that were left out of the state aid reseal project could be a viable option for these potential monies. Gardner said yes, but he encouraged the board to reconsider doing anything with bridges now because chances are favorable that another Emergency Road and Bridge Repair fund (ERBR) could be coming next year.
“I’m thinking more just along your road needs or other things like parking lots,” said Gardner. “The old mentality used to always be to ask for a little something. What I seem to be hearing now is to tell people what you need.”
Pinkard said a good project would be to rework the parking lot and driveway entering the Jack Post building on 68 acres off East Jefferson Street.
“The driveway going into Jack Post to where the office side is, on the East side by the Natchez Trace, that little paved road needs reworking and that parking lot right there,” said Pinkard.
Beat Three Supervisor Steven Goss said one of his priorities is getting the roads left out of the reseal project finished.
“I want these roads resealed, restriped, and redone that we are not getting done from last time,” said Goss.
Gardner said half of the roads in Attala County were resealed in the 2004-2007 board term, and the other half of county roads were resealed in the 2008-2011 term.
“With this board term, y’all have got about 150-155 miles in the county that are constructed state aid roads,” said Gardner. “So, if you back up and take off 25 or 15-ish here, y'all have probably got 120 miles of state aid roads that haven’t been resealed in the last 10 to 15 years. So, I mean, I agree that would be a great thing countywide that helps everybody out.”
If the supervisors follow Gardner’s advice, the board should have a list of planned improvements and projects put together by mid-January in order to be eligible and ready for any potential state funding available to Attala County in the 2022 legislative session.
