Intermodal Votes To Pay Bills

The Southeast Arkansas Intermodal Authority voted to pay over $714,800.00 in bills during their May 20th monthly board meeting.  The expenses included nearly $20,000.00 to the consulting engineer, just over $2700.00 in interest to Commercial Bank and Trust, over $1225.00 to an accounting firm and $150.00 for monthly accounting cost.  In addition the board approved $690,891.93 to pay on the contract to construct a water tank for the industrial park. Expenses are being paid by grants from the United States Economic Development Administration and the Delta Regional Authority.  In both cases the grants pay a portion of the construction cost and local matching funds must be utilized.
Over the history of the Intermodal the counties of Bradley and Drew and the the cities of Monticello and Warren have contributed to the local match.



As the construction work heads toward completion, it appears based upon figures available, that once the work is one hundred percent done and all grant funds are expended, the authority will have to come up with something over $500,000.00.  The two counties and two cities are being assessed a portion of the amount owed as the project continues and payments have been made during the lifetime of the contracts.  At this time records indicate that the following is owed by each entitiy:
City of Monticello-$44,492.07
City of Warren-$75,839,61
Drew County-$132,934.88
Bradley County-$162,835.40

The cities have been making payments and the two counties are providing some in-kind work on the site.  There will still be a need to come up with the $500,000.00 in order to pay off the revolving loan that is being used to cash flow the construction work.  At this time the authority owes $333,004.99 to Commercial Bank of Monticello.

During the board meeting, Mayor Zack Tucker of Monticello asked for specification information concerning the new water tank so he could make it available to Monticello water department officials who will be providing water to the site from the Monticello water system.  He indicated the city has to make sure they can sufficiently serve the intermodal park needs.

The Authority agreed to have a called meeting June 2nd to hear a presentation relating to the Intermodal's future relationship with river ports including Yellow Bend Port and the Port of Crossett.