Infrastructure Maintenance; Prioritizing Street Repairs

By Vivian Kirkpatrick-Pilger

The City of Westminster celebrates its 50ieth year as a City this year. This means that much of the infrastructure is aging. New infrastructure has been added as well, but planning for the long-term care of this infrastructure is critical.

Incremental tax increases are what you are taxed on your home as your home value rises. If you sell your home to a new resident that new resident will be paying taxes based on the new "value" of the house when it was sold which would then in turn inrease the taxes paid to the county. What the difference is now goes to the City of Westminster in order to "revitalize" the infrastructure.

Many street repairs have been done so far, but the new Rose Center was also built during this time which slowed the repair of the streets somewhat due to the diversion of the money to pay for the Rose Center. The City staff supplemented this by applying for, and getting grants and other monies to repair and resurface more streets.

But just the streets are not the only "infrastructure" that exists in the city. There are water mains, parking lots, and buildings, such as the Police Department. There is a proposal to build a new Police Facility and estimates for that go as high as $78 million dollars. The only funding available to build that would again, be from the IRP.

I worked closely with Councilman Kermit Marsh when the IRP was developed to include safeguards on spending of the IRP money and one of the safeguards was to limit debt to three years. This meant that any loans taken out against the redevelopment money, or IRP, would need to be paid off in 3 years. It appears that some construction costs are starting to go down. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, much of the construction materials in the country were diverted to Louisiana to rebuild. This caused a shortage in other areas of the country driving up construction materials costs. If the construction materials costs go down, it's possible the estimates to build a new police facility will also go down. But the current City revenue, aside from the IRP could not bear the cost of building a new police facility in the near future without further commitment of the IRP money.

These are some of the many challenges facing our City. I think my background in budgeting, accounting and finance along with my experience as a director at the Midway City Sanitary District and facing similiar needs will serve our City well in finding new ways to meet these challenges.

Our City needs some long-term planning because the IRP will run out/end in 25 years. What will pay for the streets to be resurfaced then? What will pay for infrastructure then? Cities are required to have a 10 year "General Plan" but more and more as our cities age we find that a 10 year plan is really a "short term vision" that does not adequately address the long term needs of aging infrastructure. And, "time stops for no one......" so we should be prepared.

I hope you will read my credentials which are also posted on the Midway City Sanitary District Web site. I was elected to the Midway City Sanitary District in 2004 with a whopping 46% of the vote and currently serve as President of the Board.

I will be listed LAST in the list of City Council Candidates so you can skip right down to the bottom to find me 8-), Vote for Vivian Kirkpatrick-Pilger for the Future of Westminster.