On Friday morning at the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce’s monthly Public Affairs Roundtable, Franklin Mayor Ken Moore renewed requests that legislators remember the Mack Hatcher Parkway extension project.
The free monthly forum featuring Tennessee Legislators State Senator Jack Johnson and State Representatives Glen Casada, Jeremy Durham and Charles Sargent, provides a platform to discuss the issues in greater depth than the
media typically allows.
Friday’s panel covered several areas of concern to Williamson County, but talk centered around the work being done on this year’s budget and some $800 million available to spend on road projects.
Sargent, as Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, a position that more or less controls what happens to the budget, got more than 240 requests for funding in this years budget. The governor presented his budget to the legislature in February, and his committee began working on it, and for the last three weeks they had more than 55 hours of hearings on it. Last week he announced he would hear requests for money.
On March 29, the governor will come out with his second budget, and then the State House will sit down and look at requests.
“It would be hard to actually even bid that amount out and spend it in that time,” Sargent said. “Williamson County will get our fair share, I will assure you of that. One of the projects that we will very likely be doing this year is the widening of Franklin Road near Concord Road.”
To which Franklin Mayor Ken Moore later stood up to ask about Mack Hatcher.
“We are excited to hear about the $800 million and we are excited to hear that you can’t even spend it all. But we have a shovel ready project called Mack Hatcher Northwest Extension that is ready to go,” Moore said to applause from those in attendance and a loud “Amen,” from someone in the back of the room.
“I understand that I think there are a number of us up here trying to get it on the three-year road project,” Sargent said. “When I talked about Franklin Road I wasn’t jumping any projects that need to be put on there. I agree with you 100 percent. 110 percent.”
He said Mack Hatcher is an example of a project that should be at the very top of the list, considering that Franklin put up money for engineering for the project.
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