City pushes for sidewalk replacement

CELINA - City officials continue to discuss a sidewalk program they hope to initiate next year.

At a streets and alleys committee meeting on Monday night, city council members again mulled over the details of a proposed sidewalk policy. They asked city administrators to draft legislation to review at a future council meeting.

"Now that we've got some extra money that we can show in the budget for a sidewalk program, we definitely need to have a sidewalk program," councilman Mike Sovinski said. "I can understand why when it was dropped, because the numbers that were being shown did not fit in the budget because the budgets were bleeding red."

The city's sidewalk program has been on hold since 2009, and plans to reinstate it in 2012 were scrapped after an assessment of sidewalks in Ward 3 - the southwest part of Celina - showed $320,000 worth of replacements or repairs were needed. The city had only $40,000 earmarked to pay upfront costs.

Previously, residents were given 75 days to repair or replace damaged walks that were not part of a reconstruction project. They could have the city contract out the work and then bill them.
Residents using a city-authorized contractor either paid the city 98 percent of the cost or had the full bill assessed to their property taxes over five years.
Furthermore, city voters in November approved a ballot issue allowing funds from a 0.5 percent additional income tax levy for police and fire services to also help pay for much-needed street repairs.

The ballot language allows funds to be used for "the additional purposes of making public right-of-way improvements to city streets, curbs, sidewalks, alleys and for items and materials which are incidental and related to any such public right-of-way improvements within the city."

Councilman Fred LeJeune on Monday night suggested the city reinstate the sidewalk program but for the first year focus on the worst stretches of sidewalks in all wards, not just one ward.

"Some are buckling 2 inches or greater - that should be an emergency state," he said. "I think when we address something (that's an emergency) or critical in one ward, I think you have to do it for all four wards ... especially with the kids on tricycles and the elderly who are walking, it really is a big safety issue."

Sovinski and councilman Jeff Larmore agreed with LeJeune's proposal. However, Sovinski said after the first year of addressing the worst sidewalks, the city should revert to a ward-by-ward sidewalk program.

"The ward-by-ward worked real well because every four years every sidewalk was looked at ... and there was not that many super urgent ones after the first round because the sidewalks do shift but it takes them a couple years to go from an acceptable condition to a super-urgent condition," Sovinski said.

Council members want to revive the program, hopefully for next year, but are considering picking up a larger portion of the tab. However, they didn't come to a consensus on how much the city should pay.

"What is the owner responsible for? What is the city responsible for?" mayor Jeff Hazel asked. "Sidewalks are required by the city, not by homeowners."

"We want to do things that (are) fair and equitable," he continued. "In a perfect world the city would pay for it all. I don't think it's a perfect world, and I don't think the funding's out there to do that. We've probably got $3 million worth of sidewalks out there. They don't all need replaced today, but we've got a lot of sidewalks out there."

Also, councilors are considering picking up all the costs for sidewalks replaced as part of a street reconstruction project. Since at least 2004, every grant-funded street project has included new sidewalks at no additional cost to property owners.

Now that the city has its own funding source for street repairs and replacements, some councilors feel the city should pay for new sidewalks when reconstructing residential streets.

Councilors also have proposed that property owners be assessed the cost of curbs and gutters during a street reconstruction project if none had been there.