EDITORIAL: What About The Roads?
WE HAVE COME to expect, sadly, the wholesale neglect of our roads by the city’s current mayor and his political allies on City Council, two of whom are currently running for mayor. In 2009, and again in 2011 state officials released a survey which concluded Ann Arbor had the third worst roads in Michigan—189 miles of roads judged to be in “poor condition,” according to a story published in The Michigan Daily. This year, incredibly, city officials plan to resurface just 6.5 lane miles. Officials repaved 6.5 lane miles of roads in 2013. Between 2009 and 2014, of the 189 miles of roads in poor condition, fewer than 45 lane miles have been resurfaced. This is the combined legacy of both the Mayor and his long-time ally, Mayor Pro Tempore Margie Teall. Both of them have been in office more than a dozen years.
Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski is running for re-election and on his website his first priority is “increasing citizen engagement.” His opponent, Leon Bryson, has said “the infrastructure” is one of his main concerns. It’s ours, as well.
Beginning in 2011, voters began to elect to local office candidates who have uniformly promised to tend to the infrastructure. This includes Ward 1 Council member Sumi Kailasapathy, Ward 2 Council member Jane Lumm, Ward 4 Council member Jack Eaton and Ward 5 Council member Mike Anglin. During their varying tenures in office, none of them has brought forward any resolution related to the current state of the city’s roads. Recently, Kailasapathy, Lumm, Eaton and Anglin brought forward a resolution to establish a 12,000 square foot park atop the publicly-owned Library Lot parcel. While we appreciate the effort to establish open space downtown, we must ask: what about the roads?
Ward 2 Council member Sally Hart Petersen, currently running for mayor, ousted an incumbent in 2011 by focusing on the need to tend to the city’s roads. After Ward 3 Council member Stephen Kunselman won the August 2013 Democratic primary election against Julie Grand by 65 votes, he was quoted in The Ann Arbor News as saying “he wants to see the city more focused on repairing infrastructure like roads….”
In January 2014, Ward 3 Council member and mayoral candidate Christopher Taylor, in announcing his candidacy for mayor told The Ann Arbor News that “Ann Arbor’s success comes from…constant infrastructure improvement…” On his campaign website he claims as his first priority: “Make smart investments in infrastructure upgrades and maintenance.” In three terms on City Council, Talyor has not put forward any resolution aimed at making infrastructure maintenance a priority.
In fact, none of these three Council members running for mayor has brought forward any resolution directing city staff to devote additional effort and Street Repair millage funding to the resurfacing or rebuilding of additional lane miles of the city’s roads.
We urge all of the recently-elected City Council members who promised to focus on repairing the city’s infrastructure to do just that: focus your efforts on getting the city’s roads resurfaced. City staff, including City Administrator Steve Powers, must be asked to make a full and public accounting of why just 6.5 lane miles are slated to be resurfaced this year, and why just 6.5 lane miles were repaved during 2013. Mr. Powers told The Ann Arbor News the winter was primarily to blame for the sorry state of his city’s roads. In three of the four years he has had his job, fewer than seven lane miles of roads have been repaved annually. The public deserves honest answers from Mr. Powers and follow through from elected officials.
Council members should direct Mr. Powers to amend the city’s Capital Improvement Plan so that there is a plan to resurface a larger percentage of the miles of roads which are in poor condition.