2. Addressing Infrastructure Quality & Resiliency

Roads: Following the defeat of our first attempt at a long term road funding proposal, I will seek to reorient our efforts around addressing policy deficiencies first.

-Review / establish higher engineering standards for road construction & repair
-Review / establish new bidding procedures to foster greater competition & raise workmanship quality
-Conduct city wide road study to revise v2021 to test our assumptions and actual performance.

Together these steps would form the basis of any future attempts at a long term funding proposal or long term planning beyond a single budget year. We have made strides over the last eight years in repairing the worst streets in the city, implementing an annual engineering assessment and grading of each street, and bringing systems on line to better manage assets & data. We've worked to get a better handle on specific road conditions, lifespans, costs, and forecasts. The goal - to ensure money is being spent where it is needed most and to better plan construction and interventions to extend road life. This all has helped position the city to make decisions more thoughtfully than at any other time.
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Stormwater & Sewer : I will look to develop a long term capital improvement plan in this area. I've worked for years to increase storm water fees to enable us to go after necessary maintenance and upgrades. We will begin realizing those increased revenues in this budget year. What's needed now is an administrative focus to spell out our plans, including how we add new system capacity, particularly in areas we know need it.

As we look to pay off our water and sewer bonds within the next 4 years, I'll work to begin planning for capital upgrades necessary to maintain system service and accommodate growth.

Street Lighting: I'll look to establish a city street lighting program to modernize our existing system & lower operational costs associated.