If anything, the City of Gilroy Administration and City Council
members have taught us in at least the last four elections to be
very cynical about any action on that most basic of infrastructure:
our crumbling sidewalks.
If anything, the City of Gilroy Administration and City Council members have taught us in at least the last four elections to be very cynical about any action on that most basic of infrastructure: our crumbling sidewalks. They’ve been an issue in each election, much jawboning has been done and the result has been that proverbial “drop in the bucket”: the 50/50 plan, and the tap doing the dripping has even been turned off on occasion, at that.
Our last election was not much different. One candidate who was elected, Peter Arellano, promised in campaign mailers delivered the weekend before the election to introduce “emergency legislation” to fix the sidewalks within 90 days of taking office. We’re still waiting 120 days later.
That said, do we see a ray of sunshine in the sidewalk problem to match the one we’re all enjoying with the break in the month-long rain? It may be so. At last, it appears Council members may direct city staff to set aside $250,000 in next year’s budget to clear the backlog in 50/50 payments due to those who have already had the work done and are waiting for repayment, as well as begin to attack the problem more aggressively than the previous lip service paid with the balance of the funds left over after the backfill.
We’re also encouraged by the formation of the Sidewalk Task Force, which has met twice to date.
Sidewalks are only one component of the problem. Trees and gutter repair, as well as liability issues, need to be addressed. The task force will have four more monthly meetings and then report their recommendations to Council. It can’t happen soon enough. We have become so inured to no action that a six-month-long study seems to happen at the pace of a lightning bolt.
The funding needs were previously assessed at about $6.5 million. This has no doubt increased due to the boom in the cost of building materials and inflation.
However, whether the solution is an internal bond floated by the city and paid for with General Fund monies, or whether Council decides to simply make the hard choices and cut or postpone some other budget item to get this done without borrowing, let’s make this the year that the noise of hot air and rhetoric is replaced by the rumbling of cement trucks.
We’re cautiously optimistic. And yet again, we hope we’re not wrong.
