IS IT TRUE? July 5, 2011

12

The Mole #??

IS IT TRUE? July 5, 2011

IS IT TRUE that the City of Evansville announced last week that they are the fortunate recipient of a federal grant in the amount of $500,000?…that this grant is to be used for repair of sidewalks and that these repairs have to take place in an area of town that is statistically low income?…that there are plenty of areas in the City of Evansville that fit that description and have sidewalks that are in serious need of repair?…that in many areas there is not even one continuous block that is in good enough shape for a wheelchair or a person who can’t broad jump a couple of feet to walk down the block?…that the childhood game of “step on a crack you break your mother’s back” doesn’t have much meaning when the cracks are several feet across?…that keeping the sidewalks in good enough shape that they can be used to walk on is both a public safety and a public health issue?…that people walk in the street or refuse to walk at all when there are dilapidated sidewalks?…that the condition of the sidewalks in the City of Evansville contribute to our title of the “Most Obese City in America”?

IS IT TRUE that $500,000 (half a million) sounds like a lot of money?…that it is enough money to replace about 16,666 lineal feet of 3 foot wide sidewalks using the $10 per square foot cost estimate reported by the City of Evansville earlier this year?…that is roughly the number of feet in 15 standard city blocks?…that the City of Evansville is roughly set up on a grid that contains about 10,000 city blocks less the irregular shapes due to the Ohio River and the limits of annexation?…that a better estimate using the number of households and dividing by the number of houses in a standard block yields the number of 5,625 blocks and that adding 25% for retail and industrial areas indicates that there are about 7,000 blocks or a little over 9 Million feet of sidewalks in the City of Evansville?…that our $500,000 grant is enough to replace 0.18% of the sidewalks in Evansville?…that this is a nice start and that some neighborhood will be improved but that the sidewalks should have never been allowed to deteriorate in the first place?

IS IT TRUE that if a sidewalk lasts 30 years that there should be an annual replacement budget of a minimum of $3 Million just to keep the sidewalks up to acceptable standards?…that like our parks, our roads, our sewers, etc. that the sidewalks of Evansville are yet another legacy problem of neglect that needs to be dealt with?…that if only 20% of the sidewalks in the City of Evansville are in need of replacement that the cost to catch up to our negligence is nearly $20 Million?…that we wonder if there is anything that has been properly maintained in the City of Evansville over the last 30 years?

IS IT TRUE that the City County Observer’s lead over the Courier and Press in minutes of online viewing per month has held up for three days now?…that it is only a 1.01% lead but that we are savoring it?…that our global pageviews ranking increased by 17% after June’s numbers were crunched by Alexa.com giving the CCO a solid 40% lead over the highly trafficked website of Channel 14?

IS IT TRUE that in was reported in last week’s meeting on government transparency and Freedom of Information Act seminar that a lady stood up in the question and answer session and stated that she had done a FOIA request for the legal bills incurred by the Evansville Redevelopment Commission?…that she reported that she received a letter that basically told her to go jump in the lake?…that she then filed a complaint (‘Office of the Public Access Counselor Formal Complaint’), and the Public Access Counselor (who also was in attendance at the meeting) agreed with her, and sent her and ERC an ‘Advisory Opinion’ stating that ERC should provide the legal bills requested?…that she reported that she still has not received the information and only has the recourse of filing a lawsuit to get what she file a FOIA for?…that we invite this lady to contact us so that we may investigate this further?…that in the meantime we intend to file another FOIA ourselves for the same documents?

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12 COMMENTS

  1. King John has decided not to run again but his Democractic mafia does not want the people to know how much money they have been taken and made off sneagel proceedings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

  2. How did sidewalks become an item that the Federal government should be concerned with? No wonder that we are so deeply in debt.
    Don1938

    • I suppose because cities are not doing their job. Sidewalks are a perfect example of what the federal government should not be doing. A homeowner can hire this done for under $5 per square foot. The city spends $10 per square foot to do the same thing. If the money passes from the homeowner, to the feds, then back to the city I would not be surprised if the effective cost rises to $25 per square foot when all things are considered. Dumb Dumb Dumb

      • Joe, the contracts awarded by the city for sidewalk replacement compliant with ADA (which they all have to be now) run about $20,000 per lineal city block, one side of the street. To do an entire city block, all four runs of sidewalk, that would be $80,000 for standard width sidewalks plus the ADA ramps at each intersection and any curb modifications.

        $500,000/80,000 = just over 6 square blocks of sidewalk. So, the city had better be very selective as to where they use that grant.

    • Through the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the federal government has issued unfunded mandates and entered legal actions against municipalities to force ADA compliance with regard to sidewalks and other public facilities. http://www.ada.gov/stdspdf.htm

      Therefore it is only right that the federal government make grants available for cities to correct deficiencies, especially in cases such as Evansville where the city is subject to million and multi-million dollar law suits for sidewalk deficiencies per ADA.

      Now, as to where to use the funds, I would suggest two areas: 1) anywhere identified as neighborhoods with high populations of Americans with disabilities, 2) neighborhoods identified with high populations of citizens who depend upon feet for transportation (and I am not kidding here, because you all can see well worn paths in the grass alongside certain major thoroughfares where, for example, Hispanic restaurant workers walk to and from work), and 3) in the newly declared Evansville Arts District around Hayne’s Corner where if the sidewalks are not repaired as part of the arts district development effort, there will be no tourist foot traffic, period.

  3. I believe sidewalks are the responsibility of the homeowner, not the city. These federal funds are supposed to be used in low income areas where people cannot afford sidewalk replacement.

    • You may be right in the eyes of the city. That being the case can a homeowner just tear them out an plant grass? It is an interesting subject. Can the city be sued if someone breaks their leg on a sidewalk or is it the homeowners bacon that gets fried?

      And what of the ADA. Can they tell a homeowner what to do with a sidewalk?

      • Ask the city’s legal department. The city engineer has been struggling with sidewalk replacement contracts for the past few years in response to the fed’s orders.

        • The sidewalks are inside public road right-of-way. Sidewalks are a means of transportation. Therefore sidewalks are a public infrastructure. All the legalese in the universe isn’t going to get you out of that bag of cockroaches.

  5. In Henderson, the city owns the sidewalks and takes care of them after the developer has met all the provisions. Because the city owns the sidewalks and maintains them because the city owns the easements! I’m not saying it’s a perfect system because some developers have gotten buy, but it’s better than Evansville! How can you expect a 90-year-old woman to take care of the sidewalks? Just saying…..

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