New walkboards along the east-west rail line on the old U.S. 80 bridge will be covered, the Vicksburg Bridge Commission decided Wednesday.

The five-member panel held back $27,864 from a $660,712 repair bill for 1,500 new crossties, boards and smaller parts along the rails, citing Kansas City Southern had billed and showed up with improperly sized boards that were metal and not timber. Removable boards with metal gratings that fit between the rail and the old roadbed were installed, but it wasn’t reflected in the bill until this month, superintendent Herman Smith said.

“It matches what we have now,” he said.

Commissioners took the vote in closed session after it was termed a potential litigation issue.

In other business, the panel OK’d a $264,565 quote from ABMB Engineers Inc. to design, advertise and put out for bid work to shore up the Mississippi bank to stop soil slide on pier 2, the first large pier on the Mississippi side.

The estimate was nearly $3,000 less than an offer approved last month because a new calculation showed decreased overhead costs, board attorney Bobby Bailess said.

A contract to perform the work is expected by April, commissioners said.

Winning bids on surplus materials were:

• Bill Fenwick, $6.10 each for 10 walkboards shorter than 20 feet long

• Ricky’s Welding, $15 each for 100, 16-foot crossties

• Mike Cogan, $5 each for seven high bay multi-voltage shop lights

• M&M Sales And Service, of Timpson, Texas, 15 cents per pound for about 10,000 pounds of scrap metal

• Ricky Patterson, $10 each for six 10-foot crossties; $25 each for four 16-foot crossties; $10 each for four walkboards longer than 20 feet.

• Pete Buford, $6 each for 100, 16-foot crossties; $5.01 each for 444 walkboards longer than 20 feet; $4.10 each for 219 walkboards shorter than 20 feet long; $6.50 each for 123 bumper rails longer than 20 feet; $3 each for 36 bumper rails shorter than 20 feet.