Small portion of Franklin Parkway receives unintended repairs

This portion of roadway on in the Franklin City Limits was an unintended beneficiary of some road maintenance work recently

(Franklin, GA) — A contractor’s mistake has given a small portion of Franklin Parkway an unexpected face lift.

The Heard County government hired a contractor recently to do some maintenance work including a double chip seal finish on the northern county-owned portion of Franklin Parkway between the city of Franklin and US Hwy 27.

The contractors, however, made a mistake and unintentionally completed the work for about one half of a mile into the Franklin City limits near the intersection of HWY 34 West near the Franklin Community Center.

The president of the company, Freddy Kitchens of Middle Georgia Paving along with Heard County Public Works Director Darold Wiggins addressed the Franklin City Council last week to discuss the issue and Kitchens asked the council about the possibility of the city absorbing some material costs of the work.

The city council took no official action although there was some discussion on the topic. The estimated cost of the uncontracted work according to Kitchens was around $40,000.00 including about $21,000.00 for the materials.

During the discussion Councilman Cliff Jiles suggested the city might pay for materials used in the paving if the council agreed.

Council member Cynthia Putzek stated, “With all due respect this was not our project.”

“Bottom line we don’t have extra funds and I don’t know where the unbudgeted funds would come from,” stated Councilman Kevin Hayes.

Council member Willie Almond added, “This is a project that we didn’t bid out. We could be throwing our self under a bridge if we considered this.”

City attorney David Mecklin was unsure if reimbursement for the uncontracted work would even be legally possible and told the council he would have to do some research before a vote could even be taken.