City officials received more clarification Monday, May 11 as to the direction Charlotte City Council would like to see a street improvement plan proceed. City Manager Gregg Guetschow said he will present a revised street improvement plan to council by its first meeting in June, commenting that it may be difficult to put one together before the council’s May 26 meeting.
During the May 11 meeting, council members were presented, at their request, with a plan that outlined the costs associated with tackling the city’s worst, major streets first. It became quickly apparent the majority of council members would like to see the money spread out throughout the community with projects that focused more on rehabilitating roads with the less expensive process of mill and fill.
DPW Director Amy Gilson agreed, saying she would prefer to take an asset management approach to keeping streets currently rated fair from falling into the poor range.
“What we’ve done, if you look at our history, is we’ve milled and filled Pleasant Street, we milled and filled N. Clinton Street,” Gilson said. “We’re trying to preserve those streets to keep them in good condition because it is so expensive to properly fix these roads.”
Mayor Pro Tem Corey Sanders suggested placing quadrants within the city and tackling a few blocks in each quadrant with the money coming in from the county road millage.
“If you want to spread it out and do it throughout the city, we can easily come up with four blocks within each quadrant,” Guetschow said. “Knowing the money we have and the direction council wants, we can easily put together a plan along those lines. We’re just looking for a direction from you as to what your preferences would be.”
Several council members requested a mix of mill and fill with possible reconstruction on a couple of the worst streets. Councilmember Ridge asked what the plan for the worst streets would be if the county millage funds would be used for mill and fill projects.
“We don’t have a great answer for that question as to what we do with these worst streets, because we will still need additional funds from some source in order to make that work,” Guetschow said. “Our concern from a staff standpoint is that by focusing on the worst streets, more streets become worst streets. Our plan is intended to try and stabilize that situation. What we want to do is prevent more streets from becoming (rated) 2s. We feel we can do that by investing in the streets that are in fair condition, getting them into good condition using the mix of fixes Amy has talked about, preventive maintenance to keep them in good shape.”
Guetschow said the city will have approximately $700,000 for street improvements for the 2016 construction season, which is two years worth of revenue from the county road millage. He has advised council previously that trying to complete a street improvement project this summer would be cost prohibitive from the standpoint of obtainning bids this late in the season.
