VIDALIA — A slightly stormy discussion about drainage issues consumed much of the Concordia Parish Police Jury meeting Monday night.

The jury heard drainage concerns from residents and also discussed the Airport Road drainage project that involves reconstructing a portion of the road, replacing culverts and correcting foundation issues.

A Levee Heights Road resident asked the jury whose responsibility it was to maintain the drainage on the road and said the culverts were stopped up and causing water to back up.

President Melvin Ferrington said Levee Heights was in his district and said he thought the road’s culverts had been cleaned out when Public Works did work in the area a couple of weeks ago.

“But if the culvert is stopped up and needs to be cleaned out, we’ll do it,” he said. “Whatever needs to be done, we’ll do it.”

Resident Claudia Z. Ford complained to the jury that she believes workers have been hauling out gravel her neighbor put in a drainage ditch on Ames Road for several years. Ford said the gravel was left alone until District 5A Juror Jimmy Jernigan became the district’s police juror.

“Since I have been on here for the past eight years, they have not been taking been taking gravel,” Jernigan said.

Ford disagreed and said someone hauled gravel out of the ditch two weeks ago.

Ferrington said the jury would look into the matter.

Airport Road resident Ken Ensminger told the jurors they approved the installation of a culvert going under the road by his house more than a year ago, and he said the culvert had yet to be put in.

“When the flood came, I was holding two feet of water higher on my side of the road than anyone else,” he said.

The project’s engineer, Hayden Kaiser, said replacing the culvert by Ensminger’s house could possibly help, or he said it could reverse the water flow back onto Ensminger’s property.

The jurors and Kaiser discussed several ways to alleviate the drainage problem and ultimately decided to replace the culvert that goes under Moose Lodge Road ,where it crosses Airport Road to alleviate the area where water collects near Ensminger’s house.

Resident Ray Routon asked board why Plouden Bayou Road was not included in the current second phase of the parish’s drainage and road project. Routon said the road is less than a mile long, has 26 residences on it and needs work.

“My question being can the jury, since this road has 26 houses on it and needs very little engineering work, consider putting this road on the priority list?”

Juror Randy Temple explained that the priority list for roads that need work is based on engineering data and not the jury’s preferences, which he said supposedly takes the politics out of the matter.

“We can’t say we want this one or that one on top of priority list,” he said. “The priority list is the roads that the engineer determines…what’s rated No. 1 or No. 24.”

Ferrington said once the jury pays for the first three phases of the Airport Road project, another priority list will be made. He said the sales tax money appropriated for the drainage and highway maintenance will go toward the project’s debt service for the next 25 years.

Temple said he believed sales tax numbers, which he said are slowly recovering after an economic downturn in 2008, will increase, and another priority list for roads can be created in a few years.

In other news from the meeting, the jury approved:

4The payment of $12,000 to Jordan, Kaiser & Sessions LLC for engineering services that included inspection and road design for the Airport Road project.

4Occupational licenses for Michael L. Trevillion for Tree’s Home Improvements, James Bradford for Spokane Resort and Dorma Tarver for Handi-Maid Cleaning Service.

4Six fund transfers, including $30,000 from the sales tax fund to the highway maintenance fund and $10,000 from the sales tax fund to the drainage maintenance fund.