Columbus City Council discusses potential easements for flooding
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – At the last council meeting, the city of Columbus tabled a motion that came forward from Neel-Schaffer.
The city recently hired them to acquire the easements the city needed for the properties in the watershed and flooding areas that will be paid for by ARPA funds.
Mayor Keith Gaskin said they are contracted with Waggoner Engineering to do the work, but the city subcontracted with Neel-Schaffer because they were behind on the easements, and the funds have to be spent by 2026.
Easements give the city permission to go onto the properties of individuals where work needs to be done to fix the problems that cause the flooding.
Once that came before the council, the CFO had concerns that since Neel-Schaffer was not in the original information filled out to receive ARPA money, they needed to make sure the city could pay them in this way.
“What we feel like we can do now in discussions with him and others is that we can have Wagner subcontract with Neil Schafer and pay them that way, or we have $190,000 in reimbursement money from the state. That was from ARPA work that we had done earlier. So we can pay them through that as well. We just were looking for a way not to have to pay through the general fund,” said Gaskin.
They will take this topic up on Tuesday, April 9, and vote to pay Neel-Schaffer for the work they are doing.
