Roadway improvements on the way to Chickasaw County Communities

CHICKASAW COUNTY, Miss.(WCBI) – Everyone needs roads and those roads need to be kept up.

The funds will soon be there in Chickasaw County for some projects, but there will still be more work that needs to be done.

Combined, Houston and Houlka will receive about $500,000.00 from BP settlement money.

Town leaders are excited to have the money and know it will help their community, because maintaining road is a constant job.

As a result of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico eight years ago, Houston and Houlka will receive some of the settlement funds.

“We were approached by my senator and representative. They said, hey look, you’re about to get some money. It came across, I think as an email from MML that something was going to happen but actually hearing at first was from our legislators. They gave an amount of about $300,000,”said Houston Mayor Stacey Parker.

“We put in for it over the last four or five years and didn’t get any until this year! Our Senator call and said they were appropriating. The next day I got a call from Jolly telling us we had $200,000,”said Houlka Mayor Jimmy Kelly.

The funds will repair and pave roads in the Chickasaw County towns.

Kelly is thankful for the money.

“You need good roads to get people into your town. If your roads are all torn up then no one’s going to want to come into town,”said Kelly

However, the cash is just scratching the surface of all the repairs that need to be made.

“We were hopeful we would get just open end to where we could do things we felt like we needed to get done. On the other hand if you’re getting money to pave streets that kind of frees up other things you can do with other money so it all worked out,”said Kelly

Parker says his town’s share, will cover a need there.

“We’ve worked on water, sewer for years, and we will continue to do that. Now we’re going to be working on downtown projects, redo our sidewalks, which is going to be with the tourism dollars. We’re going to redo the Tanglefoot Trail parking lot with tourism dollars, and we’re redoing our multipurpose field. This money needs to go directly to streets,”said Parker.

Most of all, both Mayors says they are thankful for the economic boost.

“Without the help from the senator and the representative to get this money, we’re a little bitty town here so unless you have somebody in their pitching for you trying to get you some money it’s hard to do and they’ve been instrumental in to this,”said Kelly.

There is no official arrival date for the funds.

Kelly says he plan to put the dollars to work as soon as he can.