Plan to resurface Akron streets misses a couple poor neighborhoods
This part of Clay Drive, a one-way street, south of Courtney Place, is the only section of road between I-77 and Summit Lake that will be paved this year. (Karen Schiely/Beacon Journal/Ohio.com)
Bumpy roads in a couple of Akron’s poorest areas will see little or no love this year, prompting some City Council members to question the mayor’s methods for redistributing a new income tax.
The Beacon Journal/Ohio.com’s mapping of 181 proposed projects shows pockets of the city with no work planned
Mayor Dan Horrigan, in response, told the Beacon Journal/Ohio.com that “the city of Akron is 100 percent committed to the equitable distribution of repaving funds and Issue 4 [new income tax] funds.”
By 60 percent or better, voters in each of Akron’s 10 wards approved the 0.25 percent income tax hike in November. Two-thirds of the new money will support police and fire. The rest — $4.15 million, the administration has reported — will be added to the $2.5 million spent last year on road resurfacing. A plan presented to City Council on Monday adds another $1.5 million in borrowing and $1.2 million assessed on property owners’ tax bills to fully fund the 2018 resurfacing program, which is expected to cover three times more roads than last year.
Private contractors began submitting bids on the road projects Wednesday. Work will begin in April, four months earlier than last year.
The projects, spread across the city’s wards based on how much asphalt they’ll require, are missing in nearly all of South Akron. From Interstate 77 to Summit Lake, the citywide plan tackles only one half of one street: Clay Drive, a one-lane, one-way alley of hidden front porches and gravel-patch parking.
The rest of Wards 3, 5 and 7, whose boundaries abut or include South Akron, get their fair share of resurfacing projects elsewhere, city administrators say. Service Director John Moore, in a public meeting Monday, told council members that the city “split the amount of paving material as equally as we could” so that each ward gets about the same tonnage of asphalt, a more apple-to-apples way of comparing street projects that can vary in length, width and depth.
But council members, who approved the 2018 resurfacing plan at Monday’s meeting, still haven’t seen all the projects on a city-issued map and they haven’t been told — in actual or even estimated dollar amounts — whether the residents each represents are getting an equal cut of the city’s upped income tax.
Hours after this story went online Thursday, the city explained on Facebook that projects are selected by road conditions, proximity to one another, in conjunction with sewer work and that this is only the first year with new income tax money. And there’s “a LOT of roads to resurface in Akron.”
Questions for clarity
Councilman Donnie Kammer asked for a year-over-year breakdown for his Ward 7.
The 13 projects planned for his residents are nearly double what’s usually budgeted in Firestone Park. But he was surprised to hear that 25 roads in Northwest Akron’s Ward 8 may get repaved.
Councilwoman Veronica Sims, whose at-large seat covers all Akron, asked for the map and the dollar amounts, which have yet to be made available.
“These are not really difficult questions. From the very beginning, we asked about how they would expend those funds,” she said of the new income tax, which administrators said are mixed up in other public service funds and cannot be reported separately. “It’s not an indictment. It’s an inquiry because the public wants to know from us.”
Moore told Sims Monday that he’s “not sure how equitable [the map] is going to look,” explaining that many smaller projects may give the false impression of more overall work.
Mapped
The Beacon Journal/Ohio.com mapped the 181 proposed street projects.
All but 19 are certain to happen this year. The city will contract out these “alternate” 19 if contractors agree to do them for what the city is willing to pay.
Projects within each ward were prioritized based on a system that ranks overall road conditions. Roads torn up for sewer projects move up the list. Chief of Staff James Hardy said council members can steer projects toward problem streets they or their constituents identify.
Property owners will help pay for the project. For each foot of residential frontage, $4.50 will be tacked on the property tax bill.
Ward 8 will get 25 projects, followed by Ward 6 (Ellet) with 22 and Ward 3 (Summit Lake/Sherbondy Hill) at 21 — all west of Summit Lake. To the east of the lake, where Ward 3 meets Wards 5 and 7 in South Akron, there are no resurfacing projects in a neighborhood with a lot of public housing and empty lots owned by the city.
“It’s somewhat troubling to me that the entire area of 3, 5 and 7 was forgotten,” said Tara Samples, the Ward 5 councilwoman. “[I’m] not saying it was intentional, but we need to figure out how so many were overlooked.”
Firestone Park and Kenmore have the fewest resurfacing projects: 13 each.
Outside of commercial and industrial zones, South Akron’s residential streets have noticeably no activity. Clay Drive, the lone road getting a makeover, is narrow and barely wide enough for a car and a pedestrian to pass.
Only the portion south of Courtney Place will get repaved. Where it dead-ends to the south behind a couple businesses, there appears to be little damage, especially in comparison to its northern portion with 17 homes, a patched pothole every couple feet and no plan to get repaved.
Who gets attention?
The citywide plan does concentrate on some areas.
Some, not all, of these clustered pockets of development include resurfacing:
• Nearly every side street off Tallmadge Avenue from Home Avenue to Brittain Road.
• Northwest Akron streets around Stan Hywet Hall and Firestone High School, and the entire length of Garman Road between them.
• Buchtel Avenue east of Market Street in Middlebury and every residential side street shooting north where the Well Community Development Corp. is rehabbing homes to sell to responsible owners.
• A cluster of streets between West Exchange Street and South Hawkins Avenue.
• Every street around old Central Hower High School, all the way to Market Street.