Mayor says Wax Road work advancing; Central wins state resilience award and gas‑station demolition planned

Central — Mayor Wade Evans told the council that Wax Road repairs are progressing, that the city received a state resilience award for flood work and that a privately owned gas‑station site will soon be demolished under a contract expected to be within budget. The updates matter to residents because they affect traffic access, flood insurance premiums and property blight where a demolition is planned. Evans said the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development revised its request for information so crews are installing 15 inches of material in a single lane rather than 24 inches, which should reduce the need for extended road closures. He said the contractor planned to place the binder base course on Saturday and that residents should see asphalt from the Walmart concrete past Demco that weekend. “They plan to put the first base course of binder down Saturday,” Evans said. Evans also said the city was awarded the Louisiana Department of Insurance’s inaugural Leadership and Resilience award for the administration’s flood‑protection work and development of an early‑flow system and related building‑code changes. He said Central’s CRS rating improved from a 7 to a 5, which he said will provide a total 25% discount to policyholders whose policies renew after October. On a separate property, Evans said the racks were removed from inside a gas station on a downtown site and that the city will issue a notice to proceed to a demolition contractor once the contract is finalized; he said the demolition is “well under our budgeted amount.” Evans praised staff and singled out Brandon Whitehead, the city’s floodplain manager, for his role in achieving the resilience improvements. No formal action was taken on these updates; they were delivered as part of the mayor’s report.