County Commissioners Steve Aldrich and Russ Ford met with residents of our neighborhood and a few from surrounding neighborhoods on March 3rd to discuss the IG&N road project. Ford represents Precinct 2, but is the liaison between the Commissioners Court and the Road & Bridge Department.
Commissioner Aldrich explained due to the population of the County, Judge Peters acts as the budget officer giving him broad reach in the allocation of the funds. The budget is prepared by people that report to him and the budget is submitted directly to him. The County has now reached a population that by statute requires a Planning & Budget Director, who will prepare the budget and submit to all five commissioners at the same time. No one has been hired for the position at this time.
It was acknowledged at the meeting that our project has already been delayed in multiple budget years. Just six months ago, a group representing the HOA had a conference call with Commissioner Aldrich and County Engineer Banjeri, at which time our project was in the 2022 budget. It now appears that has been pushed to the 2023 budget, even though in a February 1st follow up conference call with Ms. Banerji we were told our project is top priority in her department.
The $6.5 million project is fully designed to include two 15 foot lanes (currently two 11 foot), 2 foot shoulders and improved drainage. It will take 8-10 months to complete once started. (rendering of project on our website)
The information provided at the meeting confirmed what we had been told in previous meetings, that the lack of progress in getting the IG&N project moving is due to allocation of funds, not the lack of funds. In addition to the normal road and bridge budget, the County received $44.5 million under the American Rescue Plan (ARPA), approximately $33 million could be used for roads. County Judge Peters recently made a Powerpoint presentation at the Economic Outlook Conference that had none of that $33 million allocated to roads. In the alternative, he wants to use the funds for projects such as remodeling the County Administration Building sanctuary and establishing another District Court, which neither of the Commissioners at our forum felt would have near the benefit to our citizens as road projects.
In addition to those funds, there will be a five year $100 million bond referendum on the November ballot for road projects. Aldrich explained that if we use money under these bonds for Texas Department of Transportation (Txdot) roads in our County we only have to pay 20% of the project and Txdot will pay 80%. He pointed out that it only made sense to him to use the $33 million from ARPA for County owned road projects then leverage bond money for Txdot road projects which will exponentially increase the amount of money available for projects as a whole.
As another example of citizens being told there is no money available for roads, Aldrich gave a brief update on the Greens Prairie widening project. The County has a section of the roadway between two stretches of the roadway maintained by College Station. Residents in the area spoke before a recent Commissioners Court meeting requesting that the County coordinate with the City to widen the entire road at one time, to avoid going from four lanes to two lanes back to four lanes. The story as well as video of the speakers was broadcast by KBTX. County Judge Peters told them the money was not available.
It will take 3 Commissioners to support funding of our project. Commissioners Aldrich and Ford have pledged their support. After feedback from them on how we should proceed, the Outreach Team will be working with the HOA board to finalize a plan to include scheduling a small group meeting with Commissioner Cauley and possible Commissioner Berry followed by scheduling a small group of residents from our neighborhood to speak prior to the regular Tuesday Commissioners Court meeting for several consecutive weeks. We want to keep our project on the front burner so we don’t get pushed behind Greens Prairie or other prospective projects. We will update you when the plan is finalized.