Public Works preparing for paving season

With funds being approved for activation by the city council at the last council meeting, the Public Works Department is now focusing on this project, as well as upcoming paving within the city starting in April.

“I want to re-assure them, that, as they’ve seen in the past, we will be back out paving. We will also be addressing some neighborhood streets,” said Public Works Director Hugh Smith.

In paving these neighborhood streets within the city, Smith says they are ahead of schedule.

“We did a bond back in 2016 to address the neighborhood streets. We’re still working through that process—that was a five-year program,” said Smith. “We’re actually ahead of schedule, being in the sense that we’ve done almost seven miles of paving.”

Workers within Public Works, including Smith, will be stopping their current winter projects soon and going out to examine streets and see which ones need attention first.

“Around April, we’ll start back with that same paving operation. During the winter months, that same crew does house demolitions. I don’t know if the citizens have seen a lot of houses coming down or not. Well, in the summer we pave, and in the winter we do house demolitions.”

Smith tells citizens not to worry about inner city paving not being complete because of the 22nd Avenue Project due to this project being funded by outside tax dollars in the state along with the federal government.