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Tobar wants to apply for more state grants in hopes of improving more county roads

Grady County is in the midst of a major road improvement project on Old 179 North and County Administrator Carlos Tobar is pushing county commissioners to apply for additional grants and state funding to tackle even more.
On Tuesday night, Tobar outlined his plan to seek funding for improvements to Pine Park Road, Ridge Road and Long Branch Church Road.
Tobar is meeting with Georgia Department of Transportation officials Thursday to discuss future projects. Particularly, the administrator said he will seek to find out if the Cannon Ford Bridge on GA Hwy. 188 is on the state’s schedule for replacement.
For Pine Park Road between GA Hwy. 93 and U.S. 84, Tobar is proposing base repair and resurfacing and striping of 9.6 miles plus the replacement of the Pine Park Road bridge.
The county administrator is seeking 70 percent funding from the state for the project.
On Ridge Road, Tobar is suggesting a shoulder widening and drainage improvements along 10 miles of the county road. To finance the project, Tobar said he plans to apply for a Safety Action Plan grant through the DOT in 2018 with the local match being in the form of in-kind labor in 2019.
For Long Branch Church Road, the administrator is planning to team with the City of Cairo in 2018 and seek a Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank (GTIB) grant similar to the one the county was awarded for the Tired Creek Lake road building. For this project the local match would come from Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG) funds from the state and county in-kind labor.
Another road Tobar wishes to focus on is Open Pond Road, roughly 7.4 miles long, and he predicts the county will have sufficient funding in late 2019 or early 2020 to resurface the road. In the meantime, the county road department will make repairs to the road base between now and late 2019, according to Tobar.
Before he can obtain an estimated cost or solicit state funding and grants, the administrator said he would need a preliminary engineering report on each project from the county’s consulting engineer Stacy Watkins.
The board voted unanimously to authorize Tobar to get the cost of the engineering reports. Following the vote Commissioner T.D. David asked what the estimated cost of the engineering reports would be.
“I don’t know what the price will be. The scope of work on each project is different, but I will bring that cost back before you for your approval,” Tobar said.
Tobar also noted that every engineering report written by Watkins had resulted in a project for either the county or the city.

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