Category Archive

We must fix our infrastructure.  We neglected streets, sidewalks, and bridges for too long.  Now we find ourselves in a hole, and we have to dig out.  To do that, we have to make infrastructure spending a priority, not the thing we spend money on once everything else is funded.

We are doing better on this front than we used to.  Where just two years ago we budgeted $100,000 for street repairs, this past year we budgeted about $1.2 million.  We committed 10% of that to sidewalks, rather than asking residents to pay for sidewalk repair through assessments. 

To get to a point where infrastructure funding can be stabilized, however, we need to spend $2 million a year for the foreseeable future.  That’s a big number if you compare it to what we’ve spent in years past.  On the other hand, it is less than 15% of the city’s $14.5 million general fund budget.  This will require cuts elsewhere, but a city should spend at least 15% of our money maintaining the infrastructure we all use.  That is one of the city’s most fundamental functions.   

When we make this investment, we need to do it right.  We need to include sidewalks, bike lanes, and safe crosswalks on all streets, and traffic calming measures on neighborhood streets.   This topic is discussed in the section of this plan on transportation choices.