Don’t let the sticker shock scare you.
That’s the message being told by Clarksdale Mayor Chuck Espy and members of the city commission as they get ready for a series of public hearings that will determine if and how the city addresses its flooding woes.
In January, representatives with the Neel-Schaffer engineering firm in Southaven unveiled their plans to alleviate the flooding problems that had been gathered from citizens during public meetings held last spring and summer. The cost of those solutions ranged from $12 million to $16 million.
Espy said he doesn’t believe the city would come anywhere close to spending that type of money on a referendum that they hope to take to voters for approval on the first Tuesday of August.
The state legislature has yet to give its approval to the referendum being placed on the local ballot, but Espy believes it will be approved by lawmakers.
And while it will be a bond referendum in the millions, Espy said the city will be looking for cost savings.
“We don’t want the public to have sticker shock,” said the mayor, who said the city will explore all funding options and believes grants could knock some 30 percent off the price.
Espy believes a “maximum amount” would be $12 million and he said “that number could come back south” as the city “cherry picks” the projects it wants to address.
By the end of this week, the city plans to have the dates set for three public hearings that would be held between March and August. City commissioners would take that public input and then prioritize what areas should be addressed first. Espy anticipates that by the end of May the city will have more “concrete numbers” to work with.
City engineer Arch Corley said city leaders will also have to look at a “cost-benefit ratio” when picking what projects to take on.
For example, he pointed out that the fix proposed by Neel-Schaffer for the Andrews Acres subdivision would cost an estimated $35,000 per home. However, to fix other problem areas (such as building a levee around the two to three homes on Woodlawn Circle) would run upwards of $700,000 per home.
In those instances of high-cost repairs, the city is considering a plan to approach those property owners and offer them fair-market value for the properties and then demolish them.
Along with their solutions to fix flooding, the engineering firm also offered plans to replace the Second Street bridge that links downtown with west Clarksdale, as well as an option to repair the bridge at the intersection of Friars Point Road and Lee Drive, and the widening of a one-mile stretch of Friars Point Road.
There were also plans to make improvements to city streets and build new sidewalks that would link downtown to the proposed sports and recreation complex that would be built near the Highway 61 bypass.
Corley said Clarksdale deals with two issues: problems caused by drainage and sewage problems (such as in the Sasse Street area) and backwater flooding (such as the high water that struck the area the last weekend of February).
“We really got lucky,” Corley said of the February high water that got into an estimated three homes and a church. “Had it rained hard on that Saturday as they were calling for, it would have flooded other homes.”
Corley, who has been with the city for close to 50 years, said, “Clarksdale is very fortunate in its drainage system. We’ve rarely, if ever, had a house flood.”
