City of Franklin gets stimulus money

The City of Franklin approved an ordinance on Tuesday that allows them to receive $855,000 in grant free stimulus funds to improve its 41 year old utility water and sewage systems.

Although the ordinance requires the council to issue water and sewer revenue bonds in the said amount, Mayor Raymond Harris later commented that the move is just “a formality” in order for the city to receive the money.

Currently, he said the city is in the process of applying for $2 million in stimulus financing to upgrade its 41 year old waterworks plant and systems. “That’s money we will have to pay back, but the $855,000 we have been told, will be grant free stimulus funds,” Harris said.

Harris, along with the City Council, have been embattled in problems with the city’s water system, brought to light at the beginning of Harris term, when he presented a report from a state health inspector which indicated poor water disinfection, among other items, exist within the city’s water system.

The report is dated almost 5 years ago.

The City of Franklin supplies water to 3,100 paying customers, benefiting roughly 9,000 people.
City leaders contend they have not had the funds to correct the problems.

But now, city officials are issuing $2 million in utility bonds to the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

To pay back the money, the Franklin City Council is counting on provisions for financing infrastructure projects included in President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.

To fix Franklin’s water woes, the city will first issue, “Build America Bonds” to the state. If the sale is approved, the federal government will pay 35 percent of the interest costs on the utility bond loan and could forgive the city council part of the utility debt.

Once the mayor and council receive the bulk of the stimulus funds, Harris said he and the council are eyeing the possibility of maybe adding a ground storage tank for the city’s drinking water supply.

Harris, now more than mid-way through his first full term in office, said the city has now corrected “25 percent of the problems that existed within the system, having spent about $1 million to make right the deficiencies.”

In a related matter, Councilman Kenny Scelfo questioned Harris Tuesday, on how well employees at the water plant are being instructed and supervised.

Scelfo said that recently, he noticed two employees in the process of cutting an empty tank container. “I know we as councilman are not supposed to direct city employees, but I cautioned the two men that they should not cut the tank because they had no idea of what was contained inside of it, whether or not it would be some sort of an explosive. Needless to say, they cut into it and both got burned,” he told the mayor.

In reply, Harris questioned Scelfo, “Why didn’t you call me about this matter?”

“I really didn’t have the number for their supervisor,” Scelfo said.

“But why didn’t you call me Kenny?” Harris asked Scelfo.

“Because you don’t always return my calls mayor,” Scelfo said.

“Oh no, that’s not true Kenny. There is not a person in this room right now, whose calls I don’t return,” Harris said.

In other business, after Tuesday’s meeting, Harris gave an update on the proposed Franklin Canal hurricane protection project and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The mayor said Glenn Miller, the project engineer, is scheduled to meet with the Corps this week, to find out where the project is along the Corps’ permitting timeline.

He said the project has now passed a three inch soil boring analysis, needed in order to test whether the canal can support a levee protection system with a swing gate.

The project calls for a flood control structure on the Franklin Canal that includes building a sheet pile levee perpendicular to the canal and placing a swing barge across the waterway. Estimates have put the project cost at $1.9 million for a permanent gate structure with 12-foot levees.

Last September, the lack of a flood gate over the Franklin Canal to keep away rising tides from the Gulf of Mexico, caused more than 1,000 homes in St. Mary Parish to take in water from Hurricane Ike’s surge along the St. Mary Parish coast. The impacted area stretched east to Garden City.