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Alexander, Cynthia From: ~ent: ro: Subject: Lewis F. McLain, Jr. [news@citybase.net] Sunday, November 13,200512:00 PM Alexander, Cynthia Baytown: council weighs restructuring of street maintenance repairs Council weighs restructuring of repairs By Ryan Culver Bay town Sun Published November 13, 2005 City councilmen are exploring a new system to allocate money from the street maintenance sales tax. One option is to put the majority of the funding in council districts that have the most need for repairs. Councilman Scott Sheley expressed concerns this week over how the money is currently distributed. In the past, the money was split evenly among the six council districts. But this created a problem because the different districts' needs are not equal in size and miles of streets, Sheley said. "We have got to recognize that streets have got to stop being vote-getters," Sheley said. "In past leadership, it has been used"for votes. I think council is looking at things unselfishly now." Voters approved the quarter-cent sales tax for street repairs in May 2004. City Hall predicted the sales tax would bring in about $1.5 million a year. The original plan called for each district to get 3,000 linear feet of road repairs to use in each district. Sheley pointed out that this was not the best system for the city as a whole because the 3,000 feet was not enough in some districts and way too much in others. For instance in District 4, Don Murray's district, the repairs scheduled for the current work order add up to just more than 1,000 linear feet or 5.2 percent of. the total repairs, whereas in District 1, represented by Mercedes Renteria III, is scheduled for almost 7,000 linear feet or 32.75 percent of the total repairs. Councilmen Ronnie Anderson and Murray, whose districts' scheduled needs are well under 3,000 linear feet, said they would not mind if the allocation was restructured so that more funding could be used in the areas that need it. But both said they would like the traffic on the streets to be a factor in determining where to make repairs. "Highly traveled streets are also used by taxpaying citizens," Murray said. "I think there needs to be some kind of criteria where we can decide which streets get repairs." Sheley said he appreciates the fact that highly traveled thoroughfares get more traffic, but said he didn't know how to tell people that their citizenship was not as important as others. 1