Mulligan's State of the City Speech

Article in the Journal telling us about Mulligan's speech. One of the topics focused on road repairs. Mulligan's solution was to offer yet another tax on the people to repair the pathetic roads. I believe Mulligan suggested this years ago as well. In years past, we had a street repair committee chaired by Bill Becker with City Manager Gilleland, Councilman Tony Marconi, other city directors and other "VIP's" in attendance. As with so many committee's formed, this gathering went nowhere as to a final outcome. No action was seen but a lot of data was accumulated as to how many streets needed repair and a rating was given to each street as to severity. I have the documents from that committee as I attended as well.

Now, we revisit the old "tax the people once again" scenario from Mulligan. I find it interesting that Mulligan's speech also included funding and attention for the downtown area excluding the rest of the city entirely. They can find money to make downtown improvements, constantly funding that money pit, but they can't seem to free up any money, short of what is given to them via grants, state subsidies, and other outside sources to fix the roads. All based on priorities and it is obvious to me that the city leaders think funding the downtown area is more important than fixing streets and replacing aging infrastructure. Facade offerings, building purchases and then give-aways, special tax abatements and public money financing for business developers and friends of the city are always available but it appears there is little to no interest in placing money towards the streets that would benefit most who live here. They cater to the few who venture downtown and omit the other 95% who don't by ignoring the streets we all drive on each day. There are residential streets that haven't been repaved in 45-50 years in this town. We lived on Stratford Dr starting in 1985 and it wasn't repaved then and still isn't in 2018. By the ride we get on Marshall Rd, it looks like it hasn't been resurfaced in 40 years or more. I find it fascinating that the city leaders over the past thirty plus years have never thought it was time to make the roads a top priority. The current administration, the Gilleland years, Becker years, Olsen years and those before, have totally failed to address this issue.

Now, we are down to the gravel sub base on some streets with weed and grass growth in the aftermath. When you have to take the weed wacker out to the street to cut down the weed growth in the street, it probably indicates it is time to act.......without going back to the people's wallet to ask for money we simply don't have. Time for Mulligan and his crew to understand that.

C'mon Larry, we're all not big time bankers and "professionals" like you are. Time to realize this is a low to moderate income town.......a town you helped develop over the last four decades.