Thursday’s meeting of the Goodrich City Council focused on drainage. Recent rains have highlighted issues the city faces with its roads.
Mayor Pro-tem Bobby Wright led the meeting, with Goodrich Mayor Kelly Nelson unable to attend. He is attempting to get many involved to attack the problem of overgrowth in ditches and around culverts that has made drainage difficult.
“The project is to try to get with the mayor once again and we’ll see if we can get with the fire department,” Wright said. “Some of them, we might be able to clean, but there’s some we’re going to have to repair. There’s one we’re definitely going to have to repair, because over where that trailer park came in, that ditch line, when it rained, mostly the hard rain, it’s coming down that ditch line.”
Wright said the ditches are filling and then covering roads. There are already several potholes on Goodrich roadways, and the city is working to fill as many as possible.
“What I showed you is the biggest issue where we’re holding water, and it’s coming across the road. You know, water is going to make the road weaker, especially when you continue to get it.”
Alderman Ty Grubbs thought the job could be more cost-effective by hiring to clean a larger area.
“I think we need to go bigger,” Grubbs said. “The more we do the little projects and the worst parts, by the time we do two or three of those, we pay people to bring their equipment out, we pay people to haul their stuff out here, and bring them in. It’s more expensive to do the little portions.”
The council approved the motion for cleanup on overgrowth in ditches.
South East Avenue and Edmonds Creek are currently in need of repairs, and Wright said age is the largest contributing factor.
“Nothing has been done to our streets. So, we’re going to take baby steps, but we’ve got to get some help from somewhere trying to check into that.”
The city has received a grant of $750,000 to move a lift station. More information on the grant will be available in next month’s meeting.
