The city street of Yakima are not exactly paved with gold...in fact, it will take quite a bit of "gold" to bring them back up to snuff...somewhere between 20 and 30 million dollars. The question is: Is now the time to fix the broken and provide for future maintenance?  

The longer we wait, the more it will cost in material and the more costly each project will be.  If we wait, how long?

How did we get here?  Growing city, lot’s of traffic, inevitable wear down PLUS street maintenance money insufficient to keep far enough ahead of the wear down…SO the problem is twofold.  We need to Fix those that need it AND provide for Future Maintenance to keep us from being in this same spot in 15 years.

What are we talking about dollar wise?  20-30 million to fix and another million a year to maintain.

If you are still with me, how do we pay for it?  The General Fund budget doesn’t have that kind of money available so the City Council wants to hear from YOU about the possibility of a street bond paid for by property owners…the last two of those failed back in the 1990’s needing 60% voter approval to pass.  OR the City could, on its own without your vote, add $20 bucks to your license fee…but that would only raise a million a year so that’s not enough by itself…..BUT… the city could ALSO  enact a 6% utility tax increase that would raise a couple million more. Those would be paid by all utility users and vehicle owners, not just property owners.  AND perhaps there are some other un-thought of options out there to be considered.

The Bottom Line is the Council will want and need your input on all this…study sessions and public meetings to follow soon…stay tuned for dates and plan to attend and sound off!

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