By Bonnie Culverhouse

The long-running debate on whether the state or City of Minden owns and is responsible for pot-hole and bump-ridden Sheppard Street is about to end.

“At this point, I feel like the people of Minden sincerely don’t care who pays for it, they just want it done,” Mayor Nick Cox said last week. “So, we’re going to get it done.”

Sheppard Street was built by the state in 1953.

“The state came up with the highway system in 1954, and they declared that anything that wasn’t in the highway system should revert to the municipality or the parish,” Cox explained.

Since he has been mayor, Cox said there have been at least three DOTD secretaries. He has met with all of them and “they would determine it was the city’s road,” he said, adding that when the administration changes, all the rules change.

The city is looking at approximately $500,000 to pave Sheppard from Hwy. 80 intersection to Shreveport Road (through the Sibley Road and Lee Street intersections).

“It was a good try on our part to try and make the state pay for it all,” the mayor continued. “We have asked them for $300,000, but so far they haven’t obligated to that.”

City of Minden has around 100 miles of roads to maintain.

“We only have so much money,” Cox said of the city budget.

The strategy of Terry Combs, head of Minden Streets and Drainage Department, is to pave the high-volume roads and do more with the same amount of money.

“I feel like I have taken care of the main roads,” Combs said. “Then, we go through the city and do the lower-traffic neighborhoods.”

“It’s the plan we picked,” Cox said. “It was in place when I started – to do your Talton streets, Clerk streets that are high-volume streets, and then start working on your lower traffic streets.”

As state-owned there are many thoroughfares in Minden that are not the city’s responsibility, specifically Homer and Shreveport roads, although Homer Road is scheduled for future work when grant funding is made available.

Every year at budget time, the Minden City Council is asked to present streets in their districts that need work. Inside streets, such as those are the responsibility of the street department, while the others are not.

Cox said he hopes to have Sheppard Street on the council agenda for the April 6 meeting.