Magnolia has received nearly $500,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds to go to sewer repairs.
Aldermen on Tuesday approved an $8,000 payment to grant writer The Ferguson Group LLC for its assistance in receiving the grant.
The work will focus on fixing and extending sewer lines along Rio Lane and portions of Quinlivan Road, Mayor Anthony Witherspoon said.
Aldermen also paid Neel-Shaffer Engineering $2,132 for preliminary engineering performed on the project.
Sewer lines in Magnolia are old and often in need of repairs. The age of the infrastructure complicates repair, which prevents officials from performing needed street repairs because they would need to tear up the streets in order to repair sewer lines.
City officials intend to use the money from the grant to perform sewer maintenance before using about $150,000 leftover from a previously awarded Small Municipalities and Limited Population Counties grant from the Mississippi Development Authority to perform maintenance and repaving.
Witherspoon said it makes sense to perform work on the sewer lines first to avoid breaking up streets.
Neel-Shaffer’s Keith Lott said the firm is in the design stage of the project.
In other business, the board:
• Declared April as Fair Housing Month, in compliance with Mississippi Development Authority requirements for the CDBG grant.
• Paid Scarbrough Construction of Roxie $21,921 for work performed on the farmer’s market pavillion. This completes payment on the project except for an outstanding retainage amount of $8,250.
• Added a 2020 Ram 1500 pickup truck to the police department inventory.
• Noted city hall will be closed on Good Friday.
• Approved assistant city clerk Rhonda Carter to attend an administrative assistant conference in Gulfport in April.
