It seems the public has spoken, and city leaders are listening, on the matter of funding for street improvements and sidewalk installations.
Monday night's meeting of the city's Board of Public Works was at least a temporary victory for members of the public who've objected to the idea of a new tax or utility to pay for streets and sidewalks.
Mayor Ron Marsh appeared to have a transportation utility or some other funding source on a fast track for approval. On Monday, Marsh applied the brakes.
He backed off his recommendation to spend about $40,000 to study and implement a transportation utility. Marsh asked the board for nine to 10 months to put together a series of funding options for aldermen to consider. As for a transportation utility, Marsh said he thinks the city can develop a system "in house," rather than with the aid of a paid consulting firm.
A transportation utility as it has been discussed - with it's fees based on projected "trips" to and from properties - remains a convoluted and inadvisable approach to funding street and sidewalk work. The cash-strapped city did not need to waste $40,000 simply to study a utility's feasibility and, perhaps, put one in place. If the city ultimately is going to go down that misguided path, it can do so without the aid of a consultant.
A wheel tax, or vehicle registration fee, seems to be gaining more momentum in the discussion. It's certainly a more simple and equitable approach. But the question remains: Should the city should be asking its citizens for any more money at all during these tough economic times?
"We have to work with what we got and hold the line," Alderman Charles Koch said Monday. He said he has heard an overwhelming majority of people in Monroe say "no more tax increases."
All of this sets up some interesting and tough decisions for Monroe department heads and aldermen in the upcoming budgeting process. As they did last year, they will have to decide what priority to place on streets and sidewalks in the context of all possible expenditures, working within current revenue restraints. They may decide the work is important enough to fund fully, then have to find other cuts to compensate.
In other words, it's making due with what you have, which unfortunately during an economic recession is the best option for Monroe taxpayers. We appreciate that the mayor appears to have faced that reality, and at least called a timeout on a play to ask for more money from the people.
The occasions when the people speak, and the leaders listen, are encouraging and satisfying.
Monday night's meeting of the city's Board of Public Works was at least a temporary victory for members of the public who've objected to the idea of a new tax or utility to pay for streets and sidewalks.
Mayor Ron Marsh appeared to have a transportation utility or some other funding source on a fast track for approval. On Monday, Marsh applied the brakes.
He backed off his recommendation to spend about $40,000 to study and implement a transportation utility. Marsh asked the board for nine to 10 months to put together a series of funding options for aldermen to consider. As for a transportation utility, Marsh said he thinks the city can develop a system "in house," rather than with the aid of a paid consulting firm.
A transportation utility as it has been discussed - with it's fees based on projected "trips" to and from properties - remains a convoluted and inadvisable approach to funding street and sidewalk work. The cash-strapped city did not need to waste $40,000 simply to study a utility's feasibility and, perhaps, put one in place. If the city ultimately is going to go down that misguided path, it can do so without the aid of a consultant.
A wheel tax, or vehicle registration fee, seems to be gaining more momentum in the discussion. It's certainly a more simple and equitable approach. But the question remains: Should the city should be asking its citizens for any more money at all during these tough economic times?
"We have to work with what we got and hold the line," Alderman Charles Koch said Monday. He said he has heard an overwhelming majority of people in Monroe say "no more tax increases."
All of this sets up some interesting and tough decisions for Monroe department heads and aldermen in the upcoming budgeting process. As they did last year, they will have to decide what priority to place on streets and sidewalks in the context of all possible expenditures, working within current revenue restraints. They may decide the work is important enough to fund fully, then have to find other cuts to compensate.
In other words, it's making due with what you have, which unfortunately during an economic recession is the best option for Monroe taxpayers. We appreciate that the mayor appears to have faced that reality, and at least called a timeout on a play to ask for more money from the people.
The occasions when the people speak, and the leaders listen, are encouraging and satisfying.
