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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSrubas Email to Council 06.13.231 Bartlett, Diane From:R Srubas <srrrubas@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, June 13, 2023 4:16 PM To:Bartlett, Diane; Mugerauer, Matt; city_clerk Subject:Contract 23-01 EXTERNAL SENDER. Only open links and attachments from known senders. DO NOT provide your username or password to anyone. Rebecca Srubas 1422 Wisconsin St. I had planned on attending the council meeting tonight, but I realize that none of my remarks will hold any surprises or make any difference. I'm sure by now you've heard all of the discussions. I would like to weigh in on the issue of the special assessments for Wisconsin St. hereby called Contract 23-01. that are to be finalized tonight. Prior to making my statement I do have a few questions on this subject. 1. Why is the City Council first doing a final vote on this project when the work is already underway? Why did the final vote not precede the START of the project? What would happen if the Council (some of whom are new) did NOT approve this at this point? 2. Why is the widening of this street not even mentioned in thepacket we received? Nor lead pipe replacement? 3. Why is it referred to as the Common Council exercising its“police power” to levy these special assessments. (I’m not fond of that terminology). 2 When I looked up “special assessments” in the statutes that mention police power, it referred to “benefits conferred to property owners.” I do not perceive a widened street as a benefit to myself as much as it is to the speedsters whizzing past my house. Look at the speedway Jackson Street became when it was widened. And now you have backpedaled on that project by adding bike and turn lanes to slow traffic down. Now, Wisconsin Street will become the new speedway. How am I to consider such a change to my street as a benefit to myself any more than taller telephone poles or additional fire hydrants in my neighborhood. Is more expected of us than just “maintenance” here? I understood that taxpayers were responsible for the cost of road “maintenance", but this goes beyond maintenance. I WOULD like to go on record as being fully behind this street being repaved. It was in sad shape. That being said, the method of paying for this project boggles my mind. Besides being a ridiculously archaic way of paying a city bill when everyone uses the streets, the cost of this project to the homeowner is astronomical at today’s inflated costs. Between my share of the city’s assessment, as well as the cost of my personal laterals, I come in at more than $20,000. My house is currently appraised at $82,700. Am I seriously to consider this so-called improvement worth more than a fourth the value of my home? bjec Additionally, it occurs to me that if you can field 15 year loans from the homeowners for this project, you can indeed just outright pay for it. I GET that the people who have paid for their own streets will object, but this still needs to change. This is my second street repair as a homeowner, so I am not new to this rodea. 3 Please keep in mind that this is the poorer section of the city, and new homeowners may have trouble absorbing such an expensive assessment. Do you want to punish first-time home buyers or discourage in-city home buying altogether? First-time homebuyers almost always use most of their savings for their down payment—not to fix their street. I would even go so far as to suggest that if nothing else, realtors in this city should be required make it a point to list possible street repair as one of those “pre-existingconditions” that need to be disclosed to a buyer. Who would ever bewilling to buy a home on a narrow or crumbling street, and what wouldthat do to your efforts to gentrify and revitalize this city’s decayingneighborhoods? Why would anyone choose to buy a house in an areathat may charge 1⁄4 of the cost of their home to repair their street? The guy across the street from me bought his house less than a year ago and now sold it again. He got the hell out of Dodge. I’m assuming he took the hit for the assessment or somehow managed to blindside the new buyer with it. Lastly, I’d suggest you set up a citizen subcommittee to help develop alternative ways of paying these bills, whether it be through a wheel tax or some other method of spreading the cost to ALL who benefit by such improvements. I’d be interested in serving on such a subcommittee. In summary, I’d like to stress that if this street project is a benefit, it is a benefit to the entire driving public much more so than it is to the individual home- owners being forced to shoulder the expense. I’m asking that you think of it the way we have historically agreed to think of public education – a benefit to more than just to the children themselves or their parents, but rather a benefit to all of society. And society – even the childless, like myself – pitches in to pay for it. That’s fair, and that’s affordable. That’s what we should be doing with these street projects. Thank you.