County to Revisit School Zone Traffic Study Request

The county commission Monday night will discuss whether to follow through on a school board request for the county to seek a CTAS traffic study in the Smithville school zones.
During the December regular meeting, school board members voted to ask the county attorney, Hilton Conger and city attorney, Vester Parsley to make contact with the County Technical Advisory Service CTAS and the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) to request a traffic study on behalf of both city and county governments.
The issue has been placed on the county commission agenda for Monday night.
In October, the Board of Education voted to ask the Smithville Mayor and Board of Aldermen to formally request the Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) to conduct a cost free study of traffic flow patterns and to make suggestions for relieving congestion on highways at Northside Elementary as well as DCHS and DeKalb Middle School in Smithville.
Mayor Taft Hendrixson denied the request in a letter dated November 16, stating that the school board could seek the traffic study through CTAS.
School Board Chairman Charles Robinson, during the December meeting, said he had contacted CTAS since receiving Mayor Hendrixson’s letter. Robinson said it is his understanding that both CTAS and MTAS would be willing to work together to do a traffic study as long as both the city and county request it.
Fourth district member Billy Miller made a motion to “make a request of the attorney for the City of Smithville and the county attorney, asking that they sit down and contact CTAS to come up with such a study for the school system. I make that in the form of a motion to do so,” said Miller.
In December, 2010, the school board approved a plan to fund the cost of having persons direct traffic in the school zones during the mornings and afternoons at Northside Elementary, DCHS, and DeKalb Middle School.
Under the plan, the Board of Education, City of Smithville, and DeKalb County government each agreed to fund one third of the cost for the rest of that school year. The city and county had already approved the partnership under a memorandum of understanding.