Street Replacement Bond Funding Defeated by One Single Vote

I can't tell you how proud I was last night to see the incredible turnout for our Public Hearing to fund our street replacement program.  With dignity and respect, homeowners from throughout the city, filed up to the podium to express their views, wishes, and concerns for the use of bonding to start our street reconstruction project.

Unfortunately, the vote by our council had to be unanimous.  Council person Yeager's mind couldn't be changed, even with the nearly unanimous support for bonding by the public in attendance.  My offer to Ms. Yeager to vote yes, and if there was support for a reverse referendum, let it go to the people for a public vote was ignored.  The "NO" vote was cast.

Plan B

With the anticipation of this possibility, a resolution was drawn up by our staff and presented by Steve Zerwas to bring the funding for a single street project to a vote by the public.  This works with our existing street reconstruction plan because the first year project was the only project that needed bonding.  The remainder of the street replacement projects in the Ten Year Street Reconstruction Plan were funded by the cash balance in our existing street replacement fund.

That resolution strangely passed unanimously.

That resolution could also cost our city upwards of $35,000 to $50,000 to set up and advertise for the special referendum (vote) by the public.  The soonest the referendum could be held will likely be in mid July, which will put off street reconstruction projects for another year, increasing costs to the city by whatever inflation occurs during the next year.

There Could Still Be Hope...

There is one person who could change this and still preserve our chance to move forward.  The council person that voted "no".  Council Person Yeager is the only one that could bring this back to the council for a new vote. A vote that could save our city thousands of dollars and get our streets repaired starting this summer.  Contact information for this council person is on both Here and the city website, if you'd like to contact and encourage a change of mind.

Once again, I want to express just how proud I was of our community last night as they respectfully expressed their desire to start taking care of our city in a fiscally responsible manner.  Wyoming proved itself a truly "class act" community.