Thomas MacMillan Photo
Aldermen Smart and Perez.
As they tried to take the politics out of city sidewalk repair and street paving, lawmakers faced a seemingly unsolvable math puzzle — until Jorge Perez came up with an elegant equation: two plus two.
Two aldermen plus two members of the city administration, that is. Add them together, and you have a new committee to decide which streets and sidewalks would be repaired each year, and in what order.
Perez, president of the Board of Aldermen, pitched his plan verbally at a Monday night meeting of the Finance Subcommittee. Perez promised to put something in writing for his colleagues to consider and vote on.
The subcommittee, joined by about 20 aldermen, gathered Monday to discuss a notion first put forward by Wooster Square Aldermen Mike Smart.
Smart has been looking for a new way allocate money for sidewalks, paving, and tree-trimming. He said he’s looking to prevent the mayor from using those key city-services as a way of rewarding or punishing lawmakers. The administration has denied that it uses funds that way.
Smart initially proposed simply dividing sidewalk and paving funds evenly among the city’s 30 aldermen, so that each lawmaker could spend the money as he or she sees fit. He later adjusted the proposal so that the money would be divided 15 ways each year, going to aldermen in odd-number wards in odd-numbered years and even wards in even years. That would give aldermen larger sums to work with.
The problem of equal distribution is complicated by several factors, Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts has pointed out. Wards are different sizes, with different amounts of streets and sidewalks, in different conditions.
“Just dividing things up equally between wards isn’t equal,” Smuts (pictured) said at a Finance Committee hearing last week. He said Smart’s plan could “Balkanize” the city and lead to increased costs and decreased efficiency.
Dividing up paving money, even 15 ways, would leave aldermen without a lot of money to work with, Perez told the subcommittee Monday night.
A solution, he said, would be first to commission a study of all streets and sidewalks in the city, to rank them in order of need of repair. Then, set up a committee of two aldermen and two administration members to look at the list and decide the order of repair, Perez said.
Perez’s plan deals only with sidewalks and paving. He later said that the allocation of tree-trimming funds could work as Smart had proposed.
Dixwell Alderwoman Jeanette Morrison said it’s important that ward neighbors have a voice in the process.
That can be arranged by each alderman in his or her ward, Perez said. Each alderman would need to communicate with his constituents about what they want, he said. If not, “it’s going to come back and bite you” come election time.
Studies of city sidewalks and streets would cost about $50,000 each and take about a month and a half, said Perez. The city completed a street-ranking study in 2009, for paving purposes.
Westville Alderman Adam Marchand asked how Complete Streets traffic-calming projects would factor in: “What if the streets are beautiful but not safe?”
Complete Streets projects, funded by a separate pot of money, would not be affected, Perez said.
Fair Haven Aldermen Ernie Santiago (pictured) sought clarification on just how the committee will make its choices. If 100 streets all are in equal need of paving, how will the committee choose which to work on?
Perez said the committee should consider which streets pose the greatest safety risk to the public, to schoolchildren.
“It’s a legitimate point,” Perez said. “That’s the 800-pound gorilla question.”
Perez said he will work on drafting a proposal and submit it to the subcommittee.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Smart said of Perez’s proposal, after the meeting.
“I think this is headed in a good direction,” Smuts said. Perez’s plan has the elements of a successful one: transparency, objectivity, and dealing with the city as a whole with out “Balkanizing” it, Smuts said.