By Ralph C. Jensen

Getting power lines buried throughout the city of Murphy seems like a monumental chore, but members of the city’s Community Development Corp. took a giant step forward by suggesting that burying power lines and connections at one major intersection would be a good starting point.

With the pending construction of North Murphy Road, city directors were advised by city staff that Oncor was going to move to an underground infrastructure, joining Verizon, who has already buried its utility services underground. CoServ, Atmos and Farmers’ Electric also have high wires within the city.

“The perfect investment would be spending money on burying lines at the corners of North Murphy Road and FM 544,” said CDC vice president Eric Hemphill. “This is a key point of the Murphy city infrastructure, and where people notice Murphy the most.”

With North Murphy Road to begin a widening construction, city staff said this would be an ideal time to move utilities underground, and to the right of way. Burying utilities at the city’s busiest corners would help clean up the city.

“This is where people stop in the city,” said Director Katie Westhora. “This is where we make an impression in the city.”

CDC directors also heard a report city staff, Kristen Roberts, about the planning and possible bad weather contingency plans for Maize Days 2011.

Roberts said the annual event was going to be held, rain or shine, and that the city would stay on top of weather forecasting to have a heads up of what they needed to do. Last year, the event was canceled, though some events were attempted. This year, if inclement weather hampers the annual event, the city manager will have final say whether to proceed.

“I have concerns if we call it off as quickly as we did last year,” Westhora said. “If we stage things in the right place, such as generators, we should be able to go ahead and hold the event. We also need to keep safety foremost in our mind so residents and attendees are taken care of.”

City staff said anything that happens will be dependent upon the weather. It also was noted that in 2012, the city will have the newly refurbished Community Center and the MAC available for use to hold events.

In a final agenda item, directors are working with city staff to design a financial statement that will keep them on top of their fiscal agreements with the city, so they know the money they earmark for certain projects has either been spent or is still pending. When directors encumber certain monies for use by the city, directors want to be able to see that even though they have spent the money, the city may still be discussing its use and keep their cash flow up to date.

Directors will not hold a meeting in May, but have set June 15 as their next CDC meeting.