By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Several city infrastructure projects remain in holding patterns in terms of visible work or changes, as surveys and recommendation reports get finalized, but such steps are necessary foundations for later progress.
Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, and some of his staff members provided updates on several of those items and more routine ones to the Glasgow Common Council Infrastructure Committee at its meeting Monday.
“Street department, we’ve been mowing in right of ways, and litter pickup continues,” he said.
Wes Billingsley, Street Division foreman, said they also have the one-armed mulcher out trimming trees and that’s slow going, but they’ve almost completed the first round of bush-hogging and they were in the process of continuing to clear out storm drains.
Later, as part of the stormwater report, McGowan said they are still working on drains that got obstructed to varying degrees by trash and natural debris during the flooding that occurred the first week of April, but they are about to get caught up on it. This type of work is an ongoing effort, though, he said.
Billingsley said they had just cleaned up one along Davis Street with the jetter last week that resulted in the removal of two large trash bags full of debris.
“You can’t control what people throw out and what washes down in the ditches, but that’s what clogs it all up,” he said.
Also related to stormwater, McGowan said a consultant has been hired and has begun its review for next major improvement project, which is expected to address the drainage system leading into the Bravo Boulevard vicinity.
At previous meetings, discussions have taken place regarding the possible closure of the portion of West Water Street along the Glasgow Water Co. property to through traffic. McGowan said that at least until the justice center is completed on the adjacent property, that portion will remain as it is, and the circumstances will be reviewed at that time. Completion of the justice center is still estimated to be roughly two and a half years away.
The pedestrian walkway from the city parking structure over the Glasgow Public Square is still in the design phase, McGowan said, and he expects that to be done in July. In order to make repairs and/or improvements to the pedway, wiring connected to a generator for the Barren County Government Center has to be relocated, and McGowan said they have received the plan for that from the county government, which has approval to proceed with it, and that utility relocation is being incorporated into the design for the pedway reconstruction.
The survey/examination of the support wall on the city’s property along the 100 block of West Main Street is complete, but the report on it is not in yet, McGowan said. Mayor Henry Royse said he has been told that the county government plans to deed to the city an adjoining property it has between the city’s piece and the county attorney’s office.
“I have to talk to the county’s, [the fiscal court’s] property committee, to get that done, but I’ve explained to them that we’ve got to take that back wall out, and they own it,” Royse said. “It’s of no value to them. We’ve just got to get the deed handed over to us.”
Councilman Joe Trigg, a committee member, said he supposed the county didn’t want to pay to have work done on the wall, which adjoins and supports one side of a city-owned parking lot.
“It would cost them – theirs is a bigger mess than what we have,” Royse said.
Councilwoman and committee member Marna Kirkpatrick, wanted to know what would happen next, e.g. whether they would be replacing the entire wall, and McGowan said that all depends on the recommendations of the engineering firm that has surveyed it.
“Then, once we get the wall replaced,” Royse said, “then we can determine what we put in front of it. We can’t do anything until we fix the wall.”
McGowan told the group that an existing utility pole is along Garmon Street, and it has a security light on it that has also somewhat doubled as a street light. The light fixture no longer works, however, and neither adjoining property owner wants to renew or have responsibility for maintaining it, so the suggested plan was to replace it with a new street light – the LED type that has been used elsewhere in the city and along that same street as replacements have been made. The committee, with all four members present, unanimously agreed to allow that plan to move forward.
The other voting members are Councilmen Freddie Norris and Randy Wilkinson.
Nick Miller, manager of the Glasgow Regional Landfill, said city crews collected 150.98 tons of extra trash during spring cleanup week in March.
He and Billingsley observed separately that it was a little less than it was for the prior year.
Miller said that, since Jan. 1, the recycling center at the landfill sold 23,360 pounds of appliances for recycling. In February and March combined, it sent out 45 tons of cardboard and sold 19 bales of plastic last week.
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