Go figure, the city plans to hold public meetings, on weekdays in the middle of the afternoon when no one can attend, so they can say, “Hey, we held public meetings and no one showed up, so there must be no problem.”
• 2 p.m. Tuesday on West Avenue between Sixth Street and Madison Street. One of the subjects at that meeting will be learning a new way to report problem spots to the city.
• 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Commerce Center at the corner of Eighth Street and Phillips Avenue. City leaders will talk about the upcoming construction season, which they call “one of the biggest ever” for Sioux Falls. The city will spend about $33 million on street repairs that will affect 1,200 city blocks.
• 2 p.m. Friday at Gage Bros., 4301 W. 12th St. The 41st Street bridge reconstruction project will be the main topic of that meeting. Billed as the largest single construction project in Sioux Falls history, work on the bridge is scheduled to start March 29.
They want to blame the weather,
Rain in January seeped into cracks in the road, and the subzero temperatures that followed expanded the ice and blew out the roads, he said.
but the truth of the matter is that these streets were in bad shape before the winter hit. I encourage the mayor, the city council and the public works director to ride bicycles this summer on the main commuter routes, you will get a first hand view of what shape the streets are in.
The problem all along has been that the city hasn’t kept up with street maintenance, Costello admitted himself that the city is over $100 million behind. So what has the city been spending the money on? New streets for developers and monkey crappers. The next mayor needs to put a one year halt on new street development and play a serious game of catchup. Hire every damn contractor in the region to get these streets repaired.
Let me guess – Jodi’s “innovative” approach to the pothole problem will be to open a twitter account to report any problems.
Just get the fucking trucks out there to fix them. These meetings are just to get KELO and KSFY to suck up to them.
Oh, and lately it has been horrible.
I almost wish it would snow again just so the potholes would be full of something. I’m more worried about my suspension on a lot of SF streets than I am on logging trails in the hills.
Here’s how fixing local roads is accomplished – it’s called self-reliance. It’s what’s done in lieu of whining to Pierre and Washington.
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20100308/UPDATES/100308010
Beadle County Considers Tax Increase
HURON – The Beadle County Commission will hold public hearings this month and then decide whether to put a proposed increase in the county’s wheel tax to a public vote in June.
Doubling the tax to a maximum of $16 for a vehicle with four or more wheels would raise an estimated $180,000 the county would use to build and maintain highways and bridges.
Commission Chairman Dick Werner says putting the tax hike to a vote in the June 8 state primary election would save the county the $12,000 cost of a special election
That is exactly why they added that second penny sales tax so many years ago… and then they decided to use the money for other “quality of life” projects while we went $100M behind in maintenance.
Any wise person will tell you when you defer maintenance it costs more money in the end. If we had crews sealing cracks so the water couldn’t get down under the concrete to freeze, we wouldn’t have to replace entire sections of roadway now.
So being $100M behind on road maintenance is probably going to cost $250M in repairs to get ahead of it. That is not good city management, and if Staggers was smart he would drive this point home at every chance he gets since he is the only one who wants to use street repair money to *gasp* actually repair streets!
The only thing I disagree with is the statement about halting all new street development. If you don’t build new roads, you will stop all development entirely- people don’t tend to build homes or businesses when there are no roads to get to them, so that is a stupid idea. I realize there is this strong anti-urban sprawl sentiment and this argument about developers not paying their fair share… and both of those are valid points, but neither of them would justify putting a stop to all new development.
With some proper planning and earmarked funds we could get our streets back in shape within 3-5 years. We just need to stick with the maintenance program and some new roads might need to be postponed while we just repair them and keep them alive for a few years longer. They won’t be as smooth as they could be and we might put some asphalt over the top of some concrete as a stop gap, but in the end we would all be better off.
I just said halt new road development for one year, then resume.
So basically you are saying nobody is allowed to develop any new areas that don’t already have streets established. One year or one decade the end result is the same… you are artificially hampering development and expansion.
Perhaps in this economy the effects would be minimized to some degree only because there appears to be a glutton of available real estate, but there would still be a significant negative impact to builders and developers along with the industries that rely upon them such as survey companies, suppliers, sub-contractors, etc etc.
Besides – it is going to take a lot longer than one year to get our streets back up to where they should be.
I’m not saying that, I’m saying that tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on building new roads for one year. If the developers want streets built, they can pony up and build them, or they can wait a year, their choice.
Costner says:
That is exactly why they added that second penny sales tax so many years ago… and then they decided to use the money for other “quality of life†projects while we went $100M behind in maintenance.
Any wise person will tell you when you defer maintenance it costs more money in the end. If we had crews sealing cracks so the water couldn’t get down under the concrete to freeze, we wouldn’t have to replace entire sections of roadway now.
So being $100M behind on road maintenance is probably going to cost $250M in repairs to get ahead of it. That is not good city management, and if Staggers was smart he would drive this point home at every chance he gets since he is the only one who wants to use street repair money to *gasp* actually repair streets!
I’m still trying to get a handle on what has happened here in Sioux Falls in the last eight years under munson. Admittedly, I have only taken more than a drive by interest in the last couple years. Those numbers? The $100M numbers. I do not doubt you are right. It’s just that so many numbers are thrown out here, all shaked and baked to suit whoever is doing the cooking. Are those numbers in writing somewhere? Prolly missed it. Like I say. They throw us a lot of numbers. Hard to keep track of it all.
Well the $100M figure is from the mouth of Costello in a city council meeting I believe. I had heard before this year the figure was $80M and that number was discussed several times, but I’m not sure who at the street dept came up with those numbers and what methodology they used.
Might be a SWAG for all I know… but clearly we are way behind.
I’m not saying that, I’m saying that tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on building new roads for one year. If the developers want streets built, they can pony up and build them, or they can wait a year, their choice.
How about halting all new road development until the originally proposed ratio between developer $$$ and tax money is reached?
Then no new roads would ever get built.
It is a fact that the second penny was added strictly for street work, and like so many special project taxes the money was just added to the general fund. Anybody who agrees with another penny to pay for an event center should keep this in mind.