Concerned over projected road repair costs, the Planning Board agreed Thursday to suggest a $4 million per year cap for 2014 through 2018, but will leave next year's capital improvement tab for roads at $5,776,650.
The board expects to bring the six-year capital improvement plan before the City Council next month. Among requests from the city's three divisions, road repairs alone account for $33 million. The city is now in the midst of a multimillion dollar push to catch up on delayed repairs, but the topic dates back to 2005, when officials sought to allocate $5 million annually for 15 years. See Plaintalker's post here.
Since 2005, the city changed administrations and outsourced engineering, among other changes. This Plaintalker post notes the road repair saga and how the administration hopes to get on track again.
The six-year plan discussed Thursday projected an average of $5.5 million per year for road repair from 2014 through 2018. Planners first talked about cutting it to $4.5 per year, then settled on $4 million.
Capital projects, which are expected to be useful for many years, are financed by a combination of grants and bonding. The city has a limit on how much bond debt it should carry overall, for past and current projects, so the more grant funding, the better. Planning Division Director Bill Nierstedt said Thursday he will provide the board with a breakdown of proposed funding for the capital improvement plan.
The City Council's agenda-fixing session is Monday, Oct. 1 and the regular meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 9. I will be in Seattle on Oct. 1 but hope to report on the regular meeting. Meanwhile, information on the capital improvement plan is available in the Planning Division office during normal office hours. Besides the road repair requests, the plan includes capital requests from Police and Fire divisions, Public Works, the Plainfield Public Library, the Bilingual Day Center and the Drake House Museum.
--Bernice
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Hats off to the geniuses that decided to wait until September to start road repairs! Whoever's grandiose idea that was, obviously, doesn't have children that attend school! What a bunch of morons!!
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that the Robinson-Briggs administration stone-walled street repair and then tried to use it as an election gimmick, as in her nibs last election when 8th Street got repaved just in time for the election. Let's hope for a better future, as many of our streets are in such poor condition.
ReplyDelete0842
ReplyDeleteNo matter when you do it someone is going to complain. 0842 is probably to lazy to walk 10 feet. School is 9 months a year....so you want everything to happen in three months. Guess the contractors can lay off their people for your nine months of school.
The town is full of cry babies.