Valparaiso City Council members will vote Monday on an ordinance that could result in approval of “the largest paving program the city of Valparaiso has ever taken,” according to Valparaiso City Manager Bill Oeding.
The ordinance’s public hearing, second reading and final vote take place at 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall,
If approved and passed, the ordinance will appropriate more than $8 million in funds taken from money in coffers earned from local road and street budget allotments and money from the cigarette tax, motor vehicle restricted fund and riverboat funds.
The ordinance passed a first reading unanimously at the Feb. 26 council meeting following a presentation by Oeding explaining usual totals afforded to the streets department annually for road projects have been around $4 million in recent years.
“Following the pandemic years, we are seeing that the costs associated with asphalt and paving are only increasing, and so it makes sense to dedicate more money now to these projects and stay ahead of them, as opposed to waiting and just having higher costs down the road,” Oeding said.
“Besides the annual winter wear and tear the weather has on our roads, the other worst enemy of our paved areas are our own heavy streets and sanitation trucks, and especially garbage trucks, just because of the impact and the weight.”
The second reading, public hearing and final vote for the $8 million ordinance was supposed to be an action taken at the March 11 council meeting. However, Valparaiso Clerk-Treasurer Holly Taylor apologized for an oversight. Despite the item making the March 11 agenda, the public hearing had not officially been published in the local newspapers as a legal notice, failing the legal requirement that a notice must be published at least 10 days in advance of the vote and scheduled public hearing.
In contrast to the record-breaking financial request, Oeding said that two decades ago in 2004, the annual amount dedicated to paving projects was around $300,000.
Oeding said when determining which streets and roadways will be first to be included for repaving and upgrades, citizen alerts and feedback are factors but much of the determination and ranking of priorities come from use of “the Paser Scale.”
The Paser scale is a 1-10 rating system for road pavement conditions developed by the University of Wisconsin Transportation Information Center specifically for evaluating age and needs for resurfacing and compiled as a ranking system criteria in a manual published in 2002.
Consideration is also given to consultation with other city departments, like water and streets and sanitation, to allow for public works projects already scheduled. That prevents targeted roads and streets from being closed and dug up in the near future, before a repaving opportunity, which would amount to wasted time and added expense.
Council member Barbara Domer, D-3rd, asked Oeding if there is a list available to be published of which roads and streets have already been identified for the future paving projects.
“I guarantee if you ask any resident of Valparaiso which is the worst street in town, and in need of work and repaving, each person will say that it is their own street,” Oeding said.
“My own personal street where I live is among one of the worst, and I can tell that it is not going to be repaved for years.”
Mayor Jon Costas said the only “list” which would currently exist are the compiled streets highlighted for repair and repaving included in the original $4 million the city previously budgeted, without the anticipation of passing an additional $4 million as requested in the pending ordinance.
“Should the council pass this ordinance and appropriate the additional millions in funding, you can see how that list of street projects would certainly change and expand to so many more street considerations,” Costas said.
Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
