This week the city’s ambitious alley repaving program kicks off.
We can thank former City Manager Katrina Powell for putting this together. For unknown reasons – dysfunction? – city officials in the past never got around to addressing the condition of our alleys.
The program this year is modest, but at least it’s a beginning – and long overdue. Our alleys are in deplorable condition. In some sections there isn’t much of a road – just crater after crater.
How this escaped the attention of city officials in the past is puzzling.
Our hope is that the city can find a way to expand the project in the coming years.
To the city’s credit, and again thanks to Powell, city officials have ramped up street repairs and repaving in recent years. If the city truly has a $5 million budget surplus, a good use for that money would be to increase the number of street repairs.
Our streets, like our alleys, have long been neglected.
Now that colder weather is approaching, we would like to see city councilmembers form a committee and tackle this issue. Hamtramck is still under the supervision of state officials because of our financial situation.
This is a unique opportunity to take advantage of our financial constraints and use that as leverage to win some state and federal grants. In the past few years we have indeed taken advantage of our financial situation.
We need to keep moving forward while we have this unique opportunity.