Fred Warchol: Bad roads fault of poor maintenance practices
It’s no surprise that Atwater officials are pushing hard for a countywide, half-cent sales tax increase. And why not? They have neglected road maintenance for years. Now expensive major repairs are needed.
A competent city manager would have budgeted money toward street repair on a yearly basis. That would have allowed street surfaces to be repaired with a simple hot slurry seal. But not anymore. Those neglected cracks have deteriorated into alligator cracking, requiring a far more expensive overlay.
The proposed sales tax increase will be a 30-year burden on Atwater residents and will only encourage continued bad behavior by city leaders. Things went south when the city purchased a million-dollar firetruck and gifted senior staff with big pay raises. That money could have fixed a lot of potholes.
Three years ago, Atwater declared a fiscal emergency. Recently, Mayor Jim Price described city finances as “deplorable.” Now the question is, are we better off with “deplorable” finances, or before, when we were under a fiscal emergency?
Fred Warchol, Atwater
This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Fred Warchol: Bad roads fault of poor maintenance practices."