By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Grayson Tourism Commission met for a regularly scheduled meeting on April 11 in Grayson to discuss ongoing plans and projects for tourism in the city. Treasurer Don Combs presented the Treasurer’s report to the commission, which included revenue from the hotel transient tax and restaurant tax, expenses, and projected future expenses. These figures are used, in part, to project the commission’s budget for the next fiscal year. The commission voted unanimously to accept the treasurer’s report.
Sports park manager Grant Harper presented his report to the commission as well.
“I’ll start with the concrete project. As you can see, we are getting close to the estimate number,” Harper pointed out to the commission, referencing the hard copy report he presented. “We are obviously going to go over it because we aren’t completed yet. Hopefully, the weather will give us a break soon.”
Due to weather, concrete was only able to be poured one day out of the last thirteen days, he told the commission.
Harper explained to the commission that the estimate in question was based upon the yardage of concrete necessary to complete the project. Blacktop, he said, was estimated based on tonnage, and in both cases the price would increase if the amount of materials increased. In addition to this, Harper said that some things had been added after the original estimate was presented. Most of this had to do with changes in the roadway, he said.
The original estimate was for a two way, twenty-foot-wide roadway, Harper said. To bring this up to code, he told the commission, it would need to be twenty-four feet, which was information that was not available until after the project had been started.
“That affects the blacktop bid as well,” Harper said. “So, we had to widen that to twenty-four feet for a pretty significant distance in order to do two-way traffic.”
“We also did some curbing and some flower bed curbing near the entrance,” Harper added. “That was not in the original estimate, but I think for aesthetics and general appeal that will be a good addition. And we also chose to widen the entrance and the exits so we could have two exit lanes.”
The new exit lanes will include a right turn only and a straight exit, Harper said. This will improve the flow of traffic exiting the sports park and reduce congestion, he said. Harper told the commission that the additions will increase the material cost, but the contractor has not increased their labor charge. Once the projects are complete, Harper said he would present a full cost report to the commission.
The Commission also received the Tourism Director’s report and discussed potential future costs and revenue generated by upcoming events and festivals. The tourism commission plans to be involved in multiple events going into summer and beyond and is gathering information on how best to showcase these for maximum benefit to the city of Grayson. Information regarding these will be available on the new website which is planned to be up and running in the month of May.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
