HIGHFILL -- If passed on two more readings, it will be illegal for trucks to use Highfill's Main Street, Fourth Street, Digby Road, Peterson Road and Mason Valley Road as through routes and violators could be charged with misdemeanors and fined up to $500 for each offense. Trucks are defined as any vehicle requiring a commercial driver's license to operate it.
Further council action is anticipated to pass the ordinance because the heavy trucks are doing damage to the city's streets and roads and the city cannot afford to continue making the needed repairs.
According to Stacy Digby, Highfill's mayor, he has contacted some of the companies using the city streets as through roads to county destinations and asked them to use other routes but to no avail. Digby said that, in many cases, other routes outside the city are more direct and involve roads built for the heavier truck traffic.
"We can't afford to pay $20,000 to $60,000 per year to repair streets torn up by county traffic," Digby said.
Digby explained that the city roads were not built for the heavy truck traffic and that chicken houses were built after the roads were in place.
Rules were suspended and the ordinance was read by title only.
If the ordinance becomes law, signs will be posted to warn drivers of the restriction. The new law will not prohibit trucks from using the above roads if they are making deliveries inside Highfill's city limits along those roads.
In other business, the council delayed any action on building additional water lines until there is a certainty the city will obtain a significant number of water customers to justify the added expense. The city was considering two water line additions, one east of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport along Orchid and Insco Roads at an estimated cost of $710,380, and another along Hutchens and Vaughn Roads at an estimated cost of $420,470. The Hutchens Road project was more promising, with eight new water customers ready to sign on, and with benefits relating to water transfers from the Benton-Washington Regional Public Water Authority tanks to Highfill's water tank, but council members said they would feel more comfortable approving a project if more houses were being built along the lines. The Orchid and Insco Roads extension would have helped the city in providing water to the airport by looping lines and reducing the amount of flushing necessary.
"I'd like to think about it a month or so before we go another half million dollars in debt," Alderman David Williamson said. "We just refinanced current loans due to debt issues," he added.
Other council members agreed and said they would like to see houses being built in the Silver Meadows subdivision before the city commits to more debt.
James "Butch" Wiand, Highfill's water and sewer department supervisor, told council members bids were to be opened on Sept. 18 for the water tank project.
General News on 09/15/2015