Livingston Parish districts getting $555,000 for roads

• By BOB ANDERSON
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: May 6, 2008 - Page: 4B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LIVINGSTON — Each district of the Livingston Parish Council will get about $555,000 for road resurfacing this year, Ronnie Sharp, the chairman of the parish’s road committee told members on Monday.

Sharp asked members of the council to prepare lists of the roads they want resurfaced in their districts.

Cindy Wale, a council member who unsuccessfully has pushed the idea of creating a parishwide master plan for choosing roads, said she will use all of the funds from her district to repave Eden Church Road and to add turn lanes to major intersections on it and Dunn Road.

Those roads are among the most heavily traveled parish roads, she said after the meeting.

Getting them done is a matter of safety to motorists, she said.

Wayne Martin, the parish’s director of public works, said that Wale’s share of the money won’t be enough to do the work on Eden Church and Dunn roads.

Wale said that if her share of the money isn’t enough that she will ask some of the other council members for “loans” from their portion of the road funds.

Doing the work on those roads is important to the whole parish, not just her district, she said.

She said doing work on Eden Church Road is more important to the parish than paving gravel roads that might only serve two homes.

Eden Church Road runs north from U.S. 190 and is highly traveled in part because people use it to reach North Park, where various youth sporting events are held.

This year, the parish only has about $5 million available for paving roads. Over the past two years, the parish spent about $50 million on road resurfacing.

The council accumulated the $50 million by selling bonds. However, the bonds have to be paid back from the sales tax dedicated to road work. That cuts into the amount of work that can be done this year and in the immediate future.

Prior to 2006, the council determined the number of miles it would resurface based on a projected sales tax revenue for the year.