During a special meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BOMA) Monday afternoon, Vicksburg Mayor Pro Tem Alex Monsour and Ward 1 Alderman Thomas “T.J.” Mayfield approved and signed a contract to complete work on the city’s animal shelter.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr., who was out of town during Monday’s special meeting, said last week he hoped to see the final site work for the shelter completed in September.

While the contract, signed with DDD Construction & Sales, is for 70 days and could stretch into October, Monsour said Monday the board didn’t want to wait another day to get the ball rolling on completing the work.

“Normally the mayor would be here. He’s out of town in Florida, but the reason I wanted to call this meeting today is because we don’t need to lose any time at all,” Monsour said. “We’ve lost enough time. So this will start with the process, notice to proceed. The clock will be ticking to finish this up and get all of the animals over to the new shelter as soon as possible.”

Community Development Director Jeff Richardson said executing the contract for $300,169.95 will give DDD the go-ahead to complete site work at the new shelter located on U.S. Highway 61 South.

“This will be for the driveway, walks, parking lot and all the work around the building itself. And fencing,” Richardson said. “The building is ready to go. This will be completing all of the site work.”

The shelter’s initial completion date was pushed back earlier in the year, and changes to bidding and construction further delayed work to the driveway and fencing around the building.

“I’m going to tell the engineer after this meeting that it’s been approved,” Richardson said Monday. “He’ll notify the contractor and then get with the contractor to have a pre-construction meeting, and then issue a notice to proceed. And that will be 70 days from that notice to proceed.”