City Council approves drainage clean out

The Cameron City Council took steps to fix drainage in several places around town on Monday night.

The council approved payment to clean out drains 

“This is an area where we are trying to clean out the area behind Cameron Housing Authority where it floods over there,” Cameron Mayor Bill Harris said. “We have some back- up in there and we have a couple of underground drains that need to be washed out.”

City Street Department Manager Craig Arnold said the work will start under the railroad track on West 10th and will go from 8th Street to 6th Street. They are also planning to work on Main Street from Rusk to Jefferson, on Travis by the Fire Station all the way to Fannin, and on Central to Fannin.

“When there is a big flood those places can’t handle the water,” he said. “When there is just a small rain it is fine, but with a big rain it floods.”

Arnold said the estimate to clean out those locations would be $12,000.

“This will alleviate some of the problems in different areas of tows,” Harris said.

Arnold said the work would take about a day on the West 10th. He said that possibly 70 percent of the drainage pipes are stopped up in that area.

He said the city did clean out the ditches along the railroad to get the water to flow through there, but this cleaning the drainage will further help the problem.

“It will eliminate a lot of the problems in these areas,” Arnold said. 

The council also approved a request from the Cameron Evening Lions Club to repair the gazebo at City Park and do some clean-up over the coming months and approved a request for a special use permit to place a HUD Code Manufactured Home at 401 North Washington Avenue.

The council did go into executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss the hiring of a city manager, but came out and took no action on the matter.