City Mulls Future Street Improvement Projects

Osawatomie City Council members reviewed a map of proposed future street improvements during their work session last Thursday.

City Manager Bret Glendening provided a caveat that all future street work indicated on the map might not be possible without an increase in the city’s mill levy to fund the projects.

“I know the goal since I got here four years ago has been to maintain the same mill levy,” Glendening said. “But if we do not see a (measured) increase in the city’s assessed property valuation, a mill levy increase would be necessary.”

Council member Mike Moon said he doubted the city would see a marked increase in assessed valuation in the near future to accommodate these street projects.

“The 2013 work would be based on the 2012 valuation, and we’re not going to see any significant increase between now and then,” Moon said.

“Looking at this list, we probably have $5 million worth of street improvements planned for 2013-2014, not counting what’s on there for 2011-12,” Moon added. “Do we have the ability to borrow that kind of money?”

Glendening said that’s not likely, which is why the plans may have to be scaled back or more funds would have to be generated through a mill levy increase.

“It could depend on what the council’s appetite is for a mill levy increase,” Glendening said.

Moon suggested breaking up some projects into different years.

“We have two fairly short projects planned for 2013, and two longer ones scheduled for 2014,” he said. “Maybe we should move one of those long projects to 2013.”

Council member Tamara Maichel asked Glendening and fellow council members to consider reevaluating the list of priority streets. She said some streets in town, such as Walnut and Chestnut avenues east of Sixth Street, are in very poor condition. Neither section of those streets is on the street improvement plan, which includes projects through 2015.

“There’s stretches of Walnut and Chestnut that are in much worse shape than some of the streets on this list,” Maichel said. “I would encourage anyone to drive down those streets, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The streets are bowed and look like they have waves in them,” she said.

The volume of traffic is another factor to consider when evaluating what streets to fix, Glendening said.

When the list was adopted several years ago, some of the streets that were not on the priority list could have deteriorated at a faster pace than some of the avenues on list, he said.

Here are the proposed street improvements for 2011-2015:

2011: Oscar Street between Mill Street and Pacific Avenue.

2012: Eighth Street from Main Street to Pacific, and Ninth Street from Main to Pacific.

2013: Pacific Avenue between First and Sixth streets, and Brown Avenue between Seventh and 12th streets.

2014: Main Street, between First and 12th streets (excluding the 500 block which was just upgraded through the Streetscape downtown improvement project).

2015: Parker Avenue between First and Third streets; First Street from Main to Carr Avenue; Kelly Avenue between Third and Sixth streets; E. Pacific Avenue from First Street to the cul-de-sac.

The proposed 2011-1015 street projects do not include the Brown/Pacific/18th Street project currently underway.

Council members and Glendening noted that several city streets were improved during the program’s 2007-09 phase. Those improvements included Walnut west of Sixth Street, as well as portions of Parker Avenue and Ninth, 10th and 11th streets.

Streets slated for improvement beyond 2015 include Pacific Court; Rohrer Street, Oak Street and Shady Lane; portions of Third, Fourth and Fifth streets; Mill Street and O’Neal Street (see accompanying map for details).

In other business, the council talked about developing a written agreement between the city and the Chamber of Commerce regarding city funds for that organization. Currently, the city allocates $30,000 annually to help fund the chamber.

Council members expressed a desire to have both parties sign off on the written agreement by the end of this year. The agreement likely would stipulate certain conditions would have to be met in order to obtain funding. Some council members said they would like to develop an exit strategy that would curtail city funds for the Chamber at a specified future date.

The council also talked briefly about establishing a list of priority projects that would be funded through a proposed storm water utility fund, the fate of which will be decided by Osawatomie voters in the November general election.

The council and Mayor Philip Dudley stressed the city would have to do a good job of educating the public about the need for the proposed utility.

Glendening said two of the top priorities of the fund would be to help pay for the city’s levee certification process, which will top $400,000 when it’s completed in about 1 ½ years, and for the excavation of the city’s storm water ponding areas.

The city has tentatively planned a public presentation about the proposed storm water utility at its Sept. 9 council meeting. Council meetings start at 7 p.m. at Memorial Hall, 1104 Main St.

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Posted by admin on Sep 1 2010. Filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry