Kevin Roden for Denton City Council

Council Meeting Preview – June 19, 2012 with a Highlight on Street Bond Program

June 19th, 2012Uncategorized4 comments

We begin today’s council meeting with a Work Session at 4pm, followed by the Regular Session at 6:30pm – all at City Hall on McKinney Street. Click here to access the full agenda and back-up materials online.

There are few items on today’s agenda, but the most notable is an update on the recommendations from the Citizens Bond Advisory Committee.  As you may know, the city is contemplating going to the voters for a $20 million bond package in November for the purpose of getting a handle on some much needed street repairs.  Each council member appointed three people to sit on this 21 person committee to advise the council on how best to allocate the funds throughout the five year life of the bond program. I appointed Joe Gregory, Gerard Hudspeth, and Michael Thomas – all District 1 residents who live in different parts of the district. They served the district and city well and I thank them for their time and contributions to this important project.

The committee has developed a set of recommendations that the council will formally hear during today’s Work Session.  To see the Power Point presentation that will be shown to us this afternoon, click here. For your benefit, I have crunched the data and developed some tables to help you navigate the recommendations and suggested street projects.

To begin with, realize that there are over $94 million in needed road projects that were considered by this committee.  With only $20 million to play with, it is clear that the committee had a difficult task.

Below I broke down the proposed street funding by council district.  Please note that the spending is more or less proportionate according to the street repair needs of each particular council district.  So while you see that District 1 is recommended to receive only 23% of the total funds out of the bond program, our district’s total need of street repairs is only 21% of the needs of the entire city.  Another factor to consider (and you will see this in subsequent tables) is that streets are prioritized by a number of factors, with OCI rating being a key one (Overall Condition Index).

Below you will see a district by district breakdown of the recommended street projects (in alphabetical order) to be funded through the $20 million street bond program, should the ballot initiative pass in November:

What about the streets in need of repair which are not included in the recommendations for this bond program? I’ve sorted those by district and then by street name and posted them here as a separate PDF file.  You will also see a list of reasons as to why those are not included (lack of funding being a key reason).

Something to point out… Often I hear an accusation that goes something like this: “I’ll bet the streets where the council members live are in top shape, while the rest of us fight for the scraps!” My street, Texas Street between Oakland and Bell, is in very bad condition and has been for some time. It is a much traveled route by TWU students, is a key route for heavy constructions vehicles working on TWU, and is also a main path for city vehicles coming into the center of town from the city’s service center on the other side of Mingo. Yet my own street is not recommended for funding under this bond program simply because it is not of the highest priority. All this to point out that politics is not a factor in these decisions.

We will be discussing these project recommendations more fully during our July 17 council meeting.  In the meantime, if you have any feedback, please share it.  Contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.