The bridges might be falling apart but such means little to those who run Hinds County. The Office of State Aid Road Construction informed Hinds County it will revoke $1.4 million in state aid for bridge repair after the county failed to spend the money.
OSARC notified Hinds County on July 1:
The agency administers federal funds for bridge replacement and other road programs to Mississippi's counties. If a county does not spend its appropriation, OSARC can revoke the funding and redistribute it to other counties.
Washington County received a similar notice for its failure to spend $1 million in state aid funds for bridge repair as well.
The Federal Highway Administration reported in 2020 that Hinds County had 92 bridges in "poor" condition. The next-highest collection of "poor" bridges belonged to Washington County at 56 bridges. Madison County had 22 bridges and Rankin County had 10 bridges that were rated in poor condition. FHWA page.
Kingfish note: So what exactly is accomplished in these four-plus hour meetings and work sessions?
26 comments:
People with absolutely no skill or common sense. The children of the people that used to be on these "boards" don't run for office because any time you disagree with a Democrat you are automatically a racist. SAD
This infrastructure neglect and lack of taking advantage of free money to change the situation is a real problem.
Don'
The incompetency must be kept under wraps-Don't look for a segment on this on your local news stations-
Zero chance this money goes back to the state. This is just a warning, and is required by the terms of source of the funds (the feds). I can name ten bridges around Clinton and Raymond that are in queue for replacement or repair.
Its a great time to be in the bridge business by the way.
Dick Ward FHWA was a great man & leader along with MDOT Engineers if these people would listen!
Supervisors believe it's more important to shove a solar factory down peoples' throats than to have safe bridges.
1:51PM - Are the bridges "in queue" LSBP bridges, or will they be funded some other way? You just don't turn down free LSBP money to repair bridges, even if you are fixing other bridges out of other pots of money.
1:51PM's post didn't answer the question of why Hinds and Washington Counties haven't been using their allocated LSBP funds like the other counties have.
For non-engineers, this is like not capturing your company match on your 401(k). It's idiotic not to make use of the free money to the County.
LSBP bridge replacements under OSARC are almost always the “Choctaw” style precast bridges. In other words, the bridge components are simply brought to the site and assembled, with a minimal amount of design required. County engineers are generally the main contact with OSARC, and a competent one should be able to shepherd a project to completion with minimal BOS involvement. To get to a point where $1.4M is in danger of being revoked demonstrates extreme incompetence on the part of all involved.
There is more palm grease for solar farms than for bridge repair.
Simple answer! IMS!!!
The supes said you better come with more grease if want us to release these funds.
2:23, its not "turned down." It's just not spent yet. Yall get stirred up to easily, most of this money is committed.
Dad, you left me in March of 2018.
You'd be 104 today so if you can dial a phone please call.
Otherwise, I don't appreciate someone using my father's identity.
Yes, Max Huff did design the "Choctaw Slab span" type bridges in the late 1960's. He was paid a one time fee of less than $200 for that design. No, he didn't get a patent, and they are still used everywhere. He also created the standard plans for State Aid bridges and revised them over the years at least twice. More than 6600 bridges in Mississippi are built to his standard plans.
Hinds County needs to find a way to rebuild Woodrow Wilson Drive in the vicinity of the State Aid Office and the most absurd thing I know would drive my Dad nuts is the missing section of steel bridge rail on the south side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge directly over the train yard below. Obviously, someone with the City of Jackson figured a temporary parade barrier would work just fine.
It's probably not a coincidence that "Integrated Management Services, P.A." is the engineering firm for both counties that are having their money clawed back.
I would be curious to know if any of the other 80 Mississippi counties have failed to spend their LSBP appropriations?
There's an engineering genius and bridge expert soon to go on federal trial in the county just north of Hinds.
Here's your solution. Spring Rudy, quash his indictment, forget the nine trial-continuances and let this good man resolve these bridge issues.
Let him go to work. He never meant no harm. Win-win...That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.
Hinds supervisors will cross that bridge when they come to it.
Sorry, just paying homage to Mr. Huff. He was a bridge design genius who “perfected the mousetrap” as far as bridges are concerned. I was involved with about 75 of those 6,600 and never ceased to be amazed by the elegance of his designs. The only updates in the past sixty years have basically been to accommodate heavier highway loads.
Hey, supes gonna grift like all politicians. Nothing else matters. Not even free money borrowed from the ChiComs.
@4:06 I used to work off of Woodrow and cross that bridge everyday. I was working there when they came in and updated it. It wasn't two weeks after they finished that some Jackson local (drunk) ran his car into that railing. City of Jackson still has not fixed it. I would say that was at least 7 years ago. So typical. Hell, they can't even keep the grass cut and the garbage off the streets.
Hinds County officials would rather the money sit unused if they cant steal it.
They would rather do zero improvements with allocated funds than lift a finger to actually plan the work. Even when money is allocated, they ignore it if it is secured with oversight.
Money is only useful when they can take a portion for themselves.
Bahahaaaahhaa
@9:34 AM - That's a fact. They are on the board to enrichen them$elves/friend$/relative$, not to help their constituents. The same thing occurs all over always last Mississippi, including at least half of the Madison Co. board, CMU, etc.
The State Aid Engineer has been invited to the BOS meeting next Wednesday 9:AM to discuss this issue. Please come if you can to show support for the effort to prioritize effective use of available funds to improve Hinds County infrastructure.
This is what happens when people run for public office, not with the intention of serving...but simply collecting a salary.
4:06 (DH?) I really think the poster at 2:34 was attempting to convey a positive about your dad, I really do. Along with 5:51 (MD?), I give a big positive report of having been involved with Mr Huff for many decades. There's no better example of intelligence, experience, wit, combined with common sense & a slide rule, that's done so much, for so many folks, who never knew the benefits they received from his work. He, and other architects/engineers of that time were such that today's "professionals" can only hope to become.
What great nostalgic memories.
@151 This is Federal Funds that it administered through a state agency that comes with deadlines and pages of restrictions. They don't have a choice if the Feds put a deadline on it. This is only one of many allocations of federal funds to Hinds/JXN that was never followed through and they lost the money.
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