Our Roads, 20 Years Of Neglect

By Ben Meisner

We are being told the pot holes that you have been dodging the past few weeks are caused by the melting and then freezing conditions in the city, conditions which are causing sheer havoc with our roads.

The City's Streets division has been receiving an increasing nuber of calls about the location of pot holes. That is no surprise given the condition of our roads.

What the City will not tell you is that the problem of the streets has been simmering for years and it is about to show its ugly head.

For the past twenty years, City Councils (bent on providing the City with increasing services) have been setting the matter of re building our roads to the side. Former Mayor Colin Kinsley once said he thought the roads in this City were very good compared to other centers he had visited. That was the kind of attitude displayed in the past two decades and we now find we are faced with a horrendous problem.

We need to spend money, a lot of money to re build our city streets. We don’t have the money and while we have added a levy to the taxes aimed at correcting the problem, it does little to attack the problem.

We need some major money and some major repair done in the city. That, coupled with the fact that when the roads showed wear and the price of asphalt was cheap, we left the issue on the back burner.

Now while we would like to pin back the ears of the new council members and newly elected Mayor Dan Rogers  for the dreadful condition, they are not the problem.

There are some people sitting on Council who should be called upon to answer why we allowed our roads to get into such disrepair, they were told of the impending problem they just failed to act on it.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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