County awards reconstruction project for damaged county road

County Commissioners on Monday awarded a road reconstruction project to Stephenson Dirt Contracting, LLC to do repair work on a badly damaged county road in the Harwood area.

Pct. 3 Commissioner Kevin LaFleur said CR 284, which is highly traveled by trucks transporting fracking sand and oil, is in dire need of repaving and gravel work, and that Stephenson Dirt offered the lowest bid at $503,176.80.

The county’s TIF project budget covers $500,000 in costs. With additional engineering services totaling $45,454.54, LaFleur pulled $50,000 of County Energy Transportation Reinvestment Zone (CETRZ) funding to cover the extra costs. Work is expected to begin in September.

Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo reported that collections for May totaled $455,935.42 with the county’s portion being $91,676.78. This brings the year-to-date collections to $17,878,942.75 or 95.68 percent of the total tax levy, as compared to the May 2014 of 96.21 percent.

Cedillo also said her office has made plans to start a voter awareness program to get more citizens to register to vote— especially prior to the last day.

“What I’m thing is we’re going to get a booth and set up during different festivals and events,” she said. “We would be happy to go to any such event.”

Cedillo elaborated that staff would be on hand to answer questions about voting, such as how to complete the necessary forwarding information when moving.

“What we’re finding is when it gets to election day, someone goes to vote, they’re not on the list. The Secretary of State’s office has purged them off the list, and they want to know why.”

Cedillo said what frequently happens is when a voter moves to a new address without notifying the voter registrar, the registration form is becomes returned mail.

“When they don’t update their address, they go on the cancel list,” she said. “So we’re trying to prevent that from happening.”

Another positive aspect of these events would be a “heads-up” to remind voters to take care of business before the last day so the registrar’s office isn’t packed.

“Maybe if they see us set up with our signs and booths, they’ll remember and just go and get it over with,” she said.

Cedillo said her goal is to have booths up during the Come & Take It, Featherfest and Guacamole Festivals later this year.

“This is a totally new thing for us,” she said. “So if they’ll allow us to come, then we’ll be there.”