By Valerie Baldowski
vbaldowski@henryherald.com

Stockbridge will begin next year with a smaller budget. The city council voted Monday to trim its spending from $24,714,442, to $23,074,750.

There will also be a hefty cut to the city’s Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA) budget, which is separate from the general fund budget, according to Deputy City Clerk Nancy Brown, who puts together the city’s budget each year.

The URA’s current budget is $8,782,386, but that will go to $2,733,451 in 2010.

The URA was established in 2005 to guide development of the Town Center Project, which involves building townhomes and retail stores near City Hall. The downturn in the economy slowed those plans, according to City Manager Ted Strickland.

“With the economy like it is right now, that’s on hold,” he said. “If you built them, you couldn’t sell them. People won’t have the money to buy.”

He said, when the economy improves, plans are to move forward with the project.

Even with cuts, the city will continue some projects, however. A SPLOST III project for next year will include the renovation of the old Stockbridge City Hall, located at 4545 North Henry Boulevard, for use as a police precinct.

The work will involve expanding the building by approximately 10,000 square feet, said Strickland. Approximately $1.5 million from SPLOST III funds will be used to fund the effort.

Another capital project planned for next year is the construction of a tunnel under the railroad tracks connecting Clark Park to Gardner Park.

“It will start sometime around the first of the year,” Strickland said. “It will run anywhere from $700,000 to, possibly, $1 million.”

A third project, said Strickland, will be the construction of a walking trail beginning at Debbie Simmons Memorial Park and ending at Flippen Road. “It could run anywhere in the neighborhood of $600,000 to $800,000.”

Strickland said Stockbridge’s major water and sewer work for next year will include replacing 28,000 linear feet of older pipes with newer pipes throughout the city, at a cost of approximately $2,900,000.