City Council Candidate Questions Week 1 – Infrastructure

Each week we will be bringing you a candidate profile.  When we met with the five individuals seeking a seat on City Council this November we also gave them a list of questions.  Our questions were broken down into various topics of interest for the City of Lowell.  Each week we will be publishing our question(s) and their responses in their entirety giving our readers the opportunity to be introduced to one candidate but also see all candidate views on different subjects.   We thank all of the candidates for taking time to answer our questions and look forward to sharing their responses over the next 5 weeks.

Answers to our question(s) will be show in alphabetical order by last name.  This week’s question is about infrastructure.  We asked each candidate the following question:
How should the City of Lowell address road maintenance and reconstruction?  Would you support putting a millage proposal on the ballot to fund road repairs?

Response from Greg Canfield.

I think we need to make it a priority to get on top of our street repair. I see significant growth and investment in our City that I would hope would provide the additional revenue to get us back on track in a few years without other funding sources if we are careful how we spend our money.

I would not support a special assessment or millage because I think that puts an additional burden on our residents on fixed income that isn’t really fair. As stated earlier, I would rather see us work with what we have or consider a low city income tax which would only be paid by the working class, including those who reside outside our community but drive on our roads to get to their jobs here in Lowell. Also the CEO pays more than the janitor and the retiree’s don’t get hit with additional costs that they can’t afford.

Response from Jake Davenport.

Local municipalities across the state are facing issues with infrastructure just like we are. The biggest cause of infrastructure woes is the decrease in revenue sharing from the state. The city of Lowell is no different in this regard. I think that raising taxes should be the option of last resort.  We need to take a serious look at what are tax monies are being spent on. My idea is to go through the city budget, and decide what is necessary for the city to function. Anything that is not necessary for the city’s function would be cut from the budget and reallocated for roads.

Some of the people running in this race have proposed an income tax and a value added tax to pay for our infrastructure. In my view that is the worst option to pay for roads. Once we have those taxes they will not go away. I am opposed to raising taxes, but if that is what it comes to, I would prefer it to be a millage rather than an income tax. Mileages are enacted by the voters and they sunset after a few years

Response from Mike DeVore.

For years and years and years, we’ve done just barely enough to get by. Most plans have been simple patch jobs. That has put us exponentially behind on major repair and routine maintenance. I’m excited to see the comprehensive street and infrastructure plan and to get the ball rolling on getting the streets and everything underneath them repaired. It’s been way too long.

The word “millage” is sure to draw negative attention, especially since it’s just another tax. But I think it needs a serious look, among other options for funding. We get so much less than we did before from outside sources and we’re so far behind, it needs to be an option. But I also believe that if that’s the way we go, it absolutely has to be a DEDICATED street and infrastructure millage. You can’t in good conscience ask for it otherwise. But we need to explore every single viable option before we even entertain what is essentially another tax.

Response from Mark Ritzema.

We need to look at the budget as there used to be two road funds and find out why they are not being used.  We may have to look to a mileage for road work.  There has been nothing done on the majority of the roads in town since they were redone in the early 70’s with the storm sewer projects.  


Response from Jim Salzwedel (photo coming soon).

Road maintenance and reconstruction ideally would be handled through capital improvements.  With this approach, a small but regular portion of the budget would go to infrastructure.  While you may only be able to repair smaller areas annually, over time it is a significant contribution to maintaining infrastructure.  Many cities have adopted this approach to construction and maintenance of roads and sidewalks.  You can build or repair sidewalks at a reduced cost during other construction activities such as sewers, underground utility work, road resurfacing, etc.  Unfortunately, this approach was not always applied in past years.  

Now we are faced with a large road repair task, so a mileage proposal or increasing property taxes or I have heard recently some would consider a city income tax (a tax that would apply to Lowell residents and non-residents who work in the City of Lowell) may be the faster ways to solve our infrastructure problems, along with the annual capital improvement budget.  Of course, much discussion would be needed on the above.

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