Local & State Headlines

Lee commissioners mull road projects

• Removing a railroad crossing could ease the traffic bottleneck in downtown Leesburg.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — Transportation projects, spanning the districts of Lee County and including a study of how to ease traffic congestion in downtown Leesburg, lined up for sales tax funding at a Tuesday work session of the Lee County Commission.

The board also received a status update on construction of the new Lee County YMCA and reviewed candidates for five vacancies on the Economic Development Authority at the Tuesday session.

The Atlanta firm Street Smarts could find a way to ease traffic congestion created by the intersection of three highways — U.S. 19 and Georgia Highways 195 and 32 — at a downtown Leesburg railroad crossing, county Director of Planning and Engineering Bob Alexander said.

Skilled at negotiating with both railroad companies and the Georgia Department of Transportation, the firm proposed to draft a plan to close the crossing and connect both 32 and 195 with U.S. 19, Alexander said.

“If there’s any way to crack the nut, this firm’s going to help us,” he said.

The Lee County Board of Education on Monday authorized Street Smarts to conduct a survey of parents’ commuting patterns to the county’s middle, elementary and two primary schools.

Further south and west, Alexander also recommended the commission agree to a $62,765 engineering contract with EMC Engineering for improvements to Armena Road, as well as a turning lane off U.S. 82 onto Hickory Grove Road.

Lee County Administrator Alan Ours recommended that Armena be paved to handle truck traffic.

Alexander also recommended the board approve a contract for design work at Flowing Well and Bruner roads, and to hire EMC Engineering to oversee work now underway on Cedric Street, which joins U.S. 19 and Old Leesburg Road.

Local funding for all the projects will be paid from the county’s Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax 4 and SPLOST 5 revenues, he said.

In other business, Ours explained that five seats on the eight-member Development Authority of Lee County became vacant this month.

Authority members Lee Stanley and Greg Crowder are seeking reappointment to the board. Other candidates who wrote letters seeking an appointment were Fred Finney, J. Gary Harrell and Lee Superintendent of Schools Lawrence Walters.

The Board of Commissioners’ regular voting session is May 27, though a work session on Lee County’s fiscal year 2009 budget will be held Monday.

The county’s proposed 2009 budget of $21,512,016 reflects an increase from the current year’s budget of $18,138,070.

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