By Joe May
The Southern Standard

Meeting in regular session Tuesday evening, the Arkadelphia Board of Directors took the first step toward closing two long-unused streets.

Butler Street, which ran under the College Inn on Pine Street to cross Caddo Street, where houses were built on it, and Cass Street, which is off of Main Street, have been closed off and forgotten to most in Arkadelphia, but are still on the books, according to City Manager Gary Brinkley. 

Due to the need to seek right-of-ways for the widening of Pine Street and the extension of 10th Street for the bypass, the board needs to formally close the roadways. Ordinances to close both streets were then introduced and placed on the first of three readings. Both passed unanimously.

In other business, the board:

• Voted to award the slurry bid for 2022 street work to Missouri Petroleum, who were the low bidders at $3.06 per square yard.

• Voted to allow Brinkley to bid on a used trash hauler truck to take garbage to the landfill in Bauxite. The city’s current truck is in poor mechanical shape.

• Voted to use $1.1 million from the city’s American Rescue Fund account to reimburse police and fire expenses from 2021.  Funds allocated for those expenses will then be used for drainage issues.