Mayor Billy Spiers announced last week to Poplarville aldermen that Main and Michigan Streets and a portion of Martin Luther King Drive will be getting a facelift before Christmas.

“We have an opportunity to make a lot of people in Poplarville happy,” the mayor told aldermen at the Dec. 1 meeting. “We’ve waited a long time for this, and we can’t let this slip by.”

He asked the board to approve his request for proceeding with the resurfacing project due to the drop in the cost of asphalt from what it sold for during the summer. The lower cost for asphalt, along with the fact that Pearl River County is actually doing the paving, has significantly cut the overall cost to the city, Spiers said.

“The cost for asphalt per ton was $85.88 in the summer,” the mayor explained. “Now we’re getting it at $49.25 per ton.”

Several streets have already been resurfaced — Lake Drive and Long Leaf and Shady Oaks Lanes. Spiers said he expects to resurface Main and East and West Michigan Streets and Martin Luther King within the next two weeks so they will be finished before Christmas.

Main Street will be resurfaced through the business district between Hardee’s and Ward’s restaurants. The newly resurfaced area will tie into areas that had been resurfaced previously.

The mayor was thrilled the overall price tag for resurfacing all of these streets, including the Long Leaf area, is estimated at $140,000. That figure also includes almost $20,000 for professionally striping all of the streets, including 69 parking spaces on Main Street alone.

“The county supervisors have been great to help us,” said Spiers. “They’ve saved the taxpayers in their beats a lot of money. Mike Mitchell, the road manager, and his crew have done a great job.”

“This is a good example of the city and county working together,” Alderman John Grant said.