V. Hugh Lewis II/Jefferson Jimplecute
JEDCO visited the possibility of funding a feasibility study on the upgrading or restoring the Howe Railroad Trestle Bridge in Tuesday night’s regular meeting.
“I met with the grant writer Gary Traylor and the engineer, but don’t remember his name,” said JEDCO President Bubba Haggard. “He works with Texas Parks and Wildlife for grants. We are looking at getting costs to see what it would be to get some ideas. In the past it’s been around $200,000. But now we just don’t know. We want to see the scope of working on it. We’re not doing all the engineering, just finding out what the costs would be to get some ideas on making it a pedestrian bridge. This is a step, a half-step, to see if we can make this work for a pedestrian bridge and save it over time. Ultimately it would be up to the City to get the grant and decide if they want to go forward.”
The bridge was a part of the waterfront project which was eliminated due to costs.
Board Vice President Raymond Sanders moved to approve the $7,500 feasibility study expense, David Ozee seconded and the board approved 7-0.
“In the past the railroad had said they would grant some money if they could put a plaque on it,” said Board Member Daryl Gaither.
“We’ll need all the resources we can get,” Haggard said.
Ozee the brought up a story in Tuesday’s Marshall News Messenger about the Bigfoot Conference moving away from Jefferson to Marshall.
“There are two events,” said JEDCO Treasurer Doug Thompson. “This is a movie festival and doesn’t have anything to do with the convention here. It’s celebrating all the movies that have been shot in this area over the years.”
Before adjourning into executive session, Board Member Lynn Daughrity asked Haggard to clarify exactly what agenda item(s) the board was going to discuss in closed session.
“The Statute calls for the public to have some minimum notification as to what we’re going into executive session for,” Daughrity said. “I’m asking you to identify, for the record, what action item on the agenda we’re going into it for, along with matching it up to the exemptions [from statute]. We can’t just go into executive session because we want to.”
Haggard eventually identified item 6b: “Update/Discussion – Potential New Business Projects/Opportunities including Potential Acquisition of Property,” and the Board adjorned for approximately 15 minutes. No action was taken after they returned to an Open Meeting.
JEDCO will meet again at 5:30 p.m. January 11 at the Visitor’s Center Building.