CROWLEY - Earlier this week the Crowley City Council committee meeting started with the exciting news of a citywide street program.
However, the project is still in the planning stages and it will take approximately two to six months for the initial inventory to be completed. Then the budget will be addressed and a priority list will be constructed prior to beginning the road work.
The council will vote on it next week and the work can begin following a passing vote.
The last time the city had roads repaved was in 1999. The budget for the project was a whopping $9 million dollars. At that time Crowley had about 85 miles of paved roads.
Currently the city now has about 88.5 miles of paved road. However, despite the fact that the price of asphalt has increased, city officials feel that they have maintained the roads much better than in the past.
The utilities committee discussed payment number 13 to Cecil Perry Improvement for the rock restoration project.
It will be voted on next meeting.
The public safety committee does not have the 2017 statistics to report yet, but hopefully will by next month. The police department has all of the new radios and body cameras installed.
They are also working diligently to solve the cases of recent shootings.
Committee members also considered a proposal for the installation of four-way stop signs at the corners of Avenue B and West Third Street and Avenue B and West Fourth Street.
The proposal was forwarded to next week’s meeting.
The committee also discussed installing “no parking” signs in front of an unoccupied home to reduce traffic congestion in the area. It, also, was tabled until the meeting next week so that a plan of action can be discussed.
The fire department also received new radios and reports that they are all functioning well. The next step for the department is to begin repair work on the central station’s upstairs. It was suggested that the historic building’s roof be reconstructed to have a slight pitch.
Two liquor license renewals are up for vote and both Rice Palace and the Rice City Chevron were checked out by the Chief of Police and passed inspection. The official vote will be held at next weeks meeting.
The council then learned that the number of uninhabitable dwellings is going down with only 26 reported in the city and two were added last week.
A council member then mentioned that at the corner of Third Street and Avenue F, near Geesey-Furgerson Funeral Home, needs to have no parking signs in front of the funeral home because when stopped at the west side of the intersection, the parked cars block the view of oncoming traffic.
The zoning committee presented a situation where a homeowner requested adding 24 inches to a pre-existing 36-inch fence to make it 5 feet in total height. The fence is far enough away from the stop sign and from the front of the property to be set up as a courtyard area.
The motion was carried and will be presented to the full council on Monday.
The public building committee announced the boiler for the Rice Festival Building will be delivered on Jan. 11 and will hopefully be installed within a two-week period.
Next, the council discussed adopting a similar insurance policy as Lafayette for city workers who perish on duty. The mayor is studying the issue to address the insurance of fallen city employees.
Then the recreation committee announced that two new benches are being donated to the Martin Luther King Center.
And lastly, the meeting ended with the discussion of letting “Greetings from Levy Park” use the stage the city owns for the upcoming spring concert series.
Committees can take no binding action at their meetings. All recommendations are presented to the full council for consideration.
