New grant helping city plan for future

Carrie Helms, Clarendon Enterprise

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen voted last week to accept a $46,060 planning grant that would allow the city to map streets, sewers, drainage, water, economic development, zoning, and more to make future plans.

Grant manager Kay Howard of Lubbock-based HOWCO presented the plan at the regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen January 22.  The city applied for the grant two years ago, was approved last year, and received funding this year from the state Office of Rural Community Affairs.

 “The maps would be like a blueprint,” Mayor Tex Selvidge said, “that would help us find what we need to do, a time frame for projects, and cost estimates.”

The current maps have not been updated in more than 15 years.

“The flood zone maps were updated in 1986, and the zoning maps are dated 1965,” secretary Linda Smith said. “The new maps will be more detailed, and it will help us to know exactly where everything is in Clarendon.”

Plans call for the new maps to be stored on digital media for easy access and reproduction. Detailed housing maps will show the exact position and condition of dwellings around the city.

The city is expected to pay $6,060 of the total cost of the four to six-month long project. 

 “When it is completed, we will have an overall plan of where we are now,” Selvidge said, “and where we would like to be in five to ten years.”

Among the items on the city’s drawing board is a proposed paving project that would cover 60 blocks of the city’s most traveled streets, Selvidge said. Those same streets also carry a lot of water during rainstorms.

While it is still in the planning stages, the mayor said the city intends to contract with a professional paving company to do the street project. Aldermen are looking at a variety of ways to fund the paving, including asking the city voters to approve bonds.

“I think we could probably make the payments with what we already budget each year,” the mayor said.

The planning grant should help fill in the details and cost projections of the street plan and may boost the city’s chances of receiving a grant to replace a large section of 1920s-era sewer line, which is in danger of collapsing.

In other city business last week, Gordon Maddox presented the audits for the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation and the city. Both audits were approved.

Building permits were discussed. The board voted to waive the permit fee for the Donley County Courthouse restoration project and to refund the fee paid by Community Fellowship Church. A permit was still required for both projects, however.

The city fire marshal position was discussed, but no action was taken. And the board discussed revising the city’s Personnel and Procedures Manual.