Audio By Carbonatix
Later today I’ll post at least the first part of my chat with City Manager Mary Suhm about how she plans to gutcut the city’s FY2010-’11 budget, which needs to shed $131 million even after last year’s $180-some-odd-million bloodletting. But here’s a relevant sneak peek related to an item on the city council’s briefing to-do list today: the Department of Street Services budget in the coming year. Within, Assistant City Manager Forest Turner acknowledges there’s only enough dough to repave some 77 miles of streets — way down from the 400 miles that got some TLC back in ’07-’08.
Said Suhm when I asked her about how the streets will be impacted by the cuts: “I’d like to keep streets at the level it is now. That’s not a good level, but to take it down any more would be disastrous.” Meanwhile, here’s a look at how happy we’re said to be with streets at this very moment. The council four years ago set 80-percent satisfied as the benchmark, up from 75 percent in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, I just joined the Fix Lemmon Avenue! Facebook group.
