05/04/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/4/2005 ~, the time the residents paid off the assessment, the street needed to be done again. Mrs. ~ww Cunningham asked, if the city doesn't have the money to do this kind of work and cement is so costly, then why are we using our money in putting down cement in North Park Estates and the remainder of Sandy Ridge rather than using the asphalt overlay so we can have more funds available elsewhere? Councilman McKay explained that cement is being put down on certain azeas because the roadway isn't worth putting the asphalt over it. If you do not have a base that will hold the asphalt, you aze wasting your money. Mayor O'Grady agreed and said the asphalt overlay works with streets that aze not badly degraded. You need to catch the streets just as they are beginning to weaz to use this procedure. In the developments we are finishing up, the streets were started in cement. The administration felt and Council agreed it was only right to continue those projects in cement that had begun in cement, but that those would be the last. Marie Donelan, 4060 Shelley Drive, is an original resident in Canterbury Woods. Her street was built in 1968 and just started to develop holes in the last couple of years. She is having trouble understanding how other developments in the city can have concrete and her neighborhood can't. She believes asphalt does reduce the value of homes. Councilman Gazeau explained what had been previously stated that the streets in the other two developments had already been started in concrete. In the subdivisions that have not yet been repaired and no repair has been commenced, it is his understanding that the policy of the administration was from that point on we will be proceeding with an asphalt overlay program as opposed to a concrete repair. One of the problems with concrete repair is for years we spent millions of dollars doing slab repair and it only lasted ten years. Now those streets are beginning to need repair again. It is almost getting to the point of being overwhelming as we are still paying on the borrowing that was done for that work. The administration and Council discussed the issue of proceeding in a new direction. Change is not comfortable, but from the economic standpoint, that's where we were coming from. If a subdivision was commenced, we would complete it. Mayor O'Grady commented that Mrs. Donelan's point is well taken that some cement streets last longer than 20 yeazs-some go to 30 years depending upon usage and traffic on the road. Even if we go with a 30 year life for a cement street versus 15 for an asphalt road, the price of the cement is five times the cost. Doing the road twice in that 30 year period is still a significant savings-it doesn't even come to half of the cost of doing it once in cement. It's dollars. That's where we are as an administration and that's where this Council is. Unfortunately, our city doesn't have the funding to continue with concrete streets. Joseph Bouman, 23950 Gessner Road, said he drove those streets in Sandy Ridge and they are all internal streets--only people who live on them drive there. We don't have $1.6 million to waste or spend on concrete. He lives on an asphalt street that meets a concrete street and never noticed the difference. There is no reason why those streets can't be done in asphalt at a cost of $300,000 as opposed to $1.6 million. Jim Vevrerka, 26198 Byron Drive, thanked Mr. Limpert for meeting with the residents. Only about two residents out of the forty there were actually open to the idea of having ® asphalt streets. They bought their homes with concrete streets and do not want asphalt. 10