S. Tahoe weighing how to pay for rehabbing roads
By Kathryn Reed
South Lake Tahoe is between a pothole and a debt payment when it comes to dealing with the roads that crumble a bit more each day.
At the Aug. 2 City Council meeting, the five are likely to be asked if they are willing use a certificate of participation to pay for the millions of dollars needed to repair the asphalt.
Potholes can cause serious tire damage.
The COP is the preferred method instead of a general obligation bond that had first been floated by City Manager Tony O’Rourke. A main difference is all bonds – which are a tax – must be passed by two-thirds of the voters. A COP doesn’t need the taxpayers’ blessing.
While a COP is not tax on the people directly, the repayment of the money is taxpayer dollars from the general fund.
The council in April through the passage of the five-year financial plan OK’d spending $5 million for each of the next five years on capital improvements, with the bulk to go to roads.
Councilmen Tom Davis and Hal Cole expressed the least amount of enthusiasm to go into debt to pay for the roads.
“The interest is $32 million over a 30-year period so really it’s $10 million a year,” Davis said of the cost going to roads. “(The COP) just doubled the cost.”
Cole said, “The roads may not last 30 years.”
While the city’s Redevelopment Agency has outstanding debt, the city does not. The two are distinctly separate entities even though how the council and RDA business is conducted in public does not make that fact obvious.
The city has the money to pay for the first two years of the capital improvement plan, but would need another source of income going forward. Raising the hotel room tax has been broached as a possibility down the road.
“We need to get the ball rolling. We need to deliver something,” O’Rourke said. “To date there has been a lot of talk. The infrastructure we have demonstrates that.”
At a workshop this month, Jim Marino, who is in charge of the roads plan, told the council that staff had identified 168 capital improvement projects within the city limits. Those were narrowed down to a short list that could begin to be implemented in fiscal year 2011-12, which begins Oct. 1.
You might want to look over the books at Tahoe Verde Mobile Home Park. They have repaired all of the cracks in their roads unlike the Tahoe Keys.
Why don’t the City Fathers think of forming Assessment Districts ? and let the property owners vote on if they want there roads in there area fixed ??? Then each property owner will have a vote, Yes property owners will have there property taxes go up a little but it will benefit the whole City.
Pave them as big “tear up the street” projects are finished, not before, be frugal with our street repair money, as we don’t seem to have a lot of it.
Stop paying pensions before roads are fixed. Then there will be plenty of money.
Why is the HWY from Echo to Placerville being redone today and not SLT? Why is the road from Stateline down to Costco redone but not SLT?
Why did the City rip up 5 inches of Asphalt on Al Tahoe Blvd from Johnson to Pioneer and then put 5 more 1nches back down when all they had to do was fill the cracks ?? There was nothing wrong with that street, and they put over 7,500 tons down that could have paved 10 streets with 2 inches of asphalt. All the roads in the City don’t need to be ripped up and base rocked and re-paved, 85% of the City streets could be done with a 2 inch overlay. 15% would need R&R. Curb and gutter are another story, very costly but is needed in many of the high erosion areas.
The city used to put in Dry wells where water ponded and they worked very well but needed to be cleaned every 2 years, the way they were cleaned was to take a loader ans take the top 5 inches off and re gravel the tops, worked fine for 20 years, I haven’t seen that done in 15 years !
In a perfect world Remove and replacement of all the streets would be the answer, but the City can’t afford 3 to 500 million dollars and never will. For 30 million dollars the City could PAVE EVERY STREET IN THE CITY and then you would have good roads for at least 25 years.
Come On ,they aren’t thinking about fixing roads ,more less how to come up with some pipe dream carnival act, to draw rubberneckers here, to spend money on crappy trinkets.
It’s a know fact….we are a stationary grow up play land ,for a few people who got their fingers into everything with friends and buddies to sell gouged mechanised.