Speak out for more street paving Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 5:05 pm: MAYOR NANCY SHAVER

Letter: Take it to the streets: Our budgets shows our values
Posted: September 20, 2016 - 6:17pm | Updated: September 21, 2016 - 6:03am

By NANCY SHAVER
Lincolnville
Editor: The new city budget, to be acted on tomorrow, includes $520,000 for street paving. What’s needed is $690,000 at the least.

Streets are in sad condition. We all deal with potholes and patches that need patching every time we drive or bike in our city. And, no surprise, a formal assessment rates our streets a D-plus “Poor — At Risk.”

Just to maintain our current “bad grade,” we need to resurface 7 percent of our streets every year. This budget is 25 percent below what we need, and guarantees our streets will get worse. Instead of the four miles of streets we’ve paved for the last two years, we’d drop to three: not good. And the money is available without any heavy lifting. According to the city manager, we can easily move the required $170,000 from the $850,000 mobility budget we’re not yet ready to spend. (We budgeted $300,000 for mobility this year that didn’t get spent.)

In fact, we could add more than the bare bones $170,000 and maybe raise our streets’ grade levels and make our city more livable.

City staff has identified six miles of streets that really need attention; that would mean adding $400,000 to street paving. Since paving work is contracted, our staff says they can manage it easily without detracting from other important infrastructure work.

Whatever the right number is for our streets, it’s definitely more than the $520,000 currently in the budget. Our budget shows our values, and we need to get this right from the start, not take another look in three months and kick the can down the road.

I urge you to weigh in on this critical need. If you’d like to see the final budget changed to do the right thing for our streets, mark your calendar to speak up at the budget hearing at City Hall, in Alcazar Room at 5:05 p.m. Thursday.

If you can’t make the meeting, please send an email to me and your commissioners with your views.

***

Shaver is mayor of St. Augustine.


COMMENTS
sponger2 09/21/16 - 04:42 am 32Didn't you know?
The "mobility study" is going to address and magically cure the problem. Didn't you know?

martystaug 09/21/16 - 06:56 am 40Speed Bumps vs Pot Holes
Nice new pavement is only going to encourage the speeders to go faster. If we can't get some speed bumps along with the new pavement, then leave my pot holes alone. Of course, a little traffic enforcement would go a long way in deterring the dangerous drivers cutting through.

ANTHONYSER 09/21/16 - 09:03 am 00Street
The State gave St Augustine $1,000,000 from gas tax to do road work