Port Arthur City Councilmembers may discuss fast tracking some remedial street projects to keep road crews working ahead of pace.

Interim City Manager Becky Underhill said a special meeting called for 3:30 Tuesday in City Council chambers at City Hall will focus on a five-year capital improvement budgets, including spending on streets, drainage projects, water and utilities, parks projects and other facilities.

Included in the discussion, though, may be a rollout of some of next year’s list of remedial projects, less-complicated efforts that can be done by city road crews.

City crews completed well ahead of time the planned remedial projects for this year, with part of the $17 million the city has been eying in road improvements. That’s why City Council may move up projects intended to be done in Fiscal Year 2020, which starts Oct. 1.

There should be no shortage of projects. Port Arthur streets, already in disrepair before Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, deteriorated further because of widespread flooding.

However, Underhill said, “We are out of remedial project money” for fiscal 2019.

That means the City Council will need to amend the current city budget to fund more remedial street projects this summer.

“We want to keep these road crews working through the summer,” she said.

 

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