Council member calls for street repairs
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on March 24, 2011 1:46 PM
Goldsboro residents who feel there are too many streets within the city limits that need to be repaved aren't alone. District 2 Councilman Bob Waller agrees with them.
When Development Services Director Randy Guthrie presented a list Monday of the streets his staff had chosen as the 47 worst sections of roadway in Goldsboro for the City Council to approve for renovations, Waller quickly expressed his disapproval at how short the list was.
"I'd like to tell you that those are not all the roads that need paving," Waller said. "You left some out. As many as you put down, there's as many more that need work, too."
Interim City Manager Tasha Logan told Waller that if he could provide a list of roads that he believed needed to be added, they could be cross-referenced with a larger list so their projected costs could be presented at the next council meeting.
"I'd be happy to," Waller responded.
Waller said he has received calls from residents both within and outside of his district with concerns about roads, which tells him that regardless of the budgets, road repairs should be a priority.
"I don't know where we're going to get the funds from. But we have been remiss to maintain the roads. We've still got roads that we've got to look after," he said.
Waller said there were several roads that he'd like to see added to the list, including Audubon Avenue between Royall Avenue and Elm Street.
"That is a thoroughfare going across the city," he said.
Waller said the renovation proposals, which are for next year, should be more comprehensive and involve more roads, including some that have been recently renovated, though not as thoroughly as they needed to be.
"I want to look at some others that I may want to add to it," he said. "They're kind of all over, but some are in my district. Certain parts of other streets we've paved a little bit of it. We've patched, but they're cracking."
Waller said he'd like to see the proposals prioritized, first by how much work they need and then by how much traffic they receive.
"I think we need to do the worst ones first and move on up the line and the ones that have the most traffic. We're doing Jefferson (Avenue) this year and there's a lot of traffic on Jefferson. I'm tickled to death we're doing that one."
But while he would like to see improvement on all of the city's streets, Waller admitted that a lack of money could make that difficult to accomplish.
"We're going to have to do the best we can with what we have. Finances are hard but we need some way to keep the roads in mind. The budget's so stinking tough and if the state cuts us it'll hurt even worse," Waller said.
Gov. Beverly Perdue announced last month that the state's budget shortfall was $2.7 billion. The City Council has reported a shortfall of about $500,000 at its annual retreat, also held last month.