The Manhattan City Commission reviewed its street pavement management plan Tuesday.
The City currently expends approximately two million dollars worth of resources on road work, but according to Director of Public Works, Rob Ott, that number should be nearly doubled in order to maintain the industry standard for overall road quality.
“If we want and try and flatten out the deterioration curve of our streets, obviously somewhere between 3 and 4 million that decline is somewhat less,” Ott said.
Doubling resources spent on road maintenance will be a considerable challenge facing the City Commission as it heads into budget season, and Commissioner Wynn Butler sees three viable options for covering the gap.
“You can raise the mill levy, you can raise the sales tax, you can cut something, and it’s gotta be a combination of those,” Butler said. “I don’t like raising any of the taxes (but) there may not be any other option when you start looking at it because people may not want to sacrifice some things.”
The Commission will continue to develop a strategy as the budget season heats up.
Also Tuesday, the Manhattan Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) presented first quarter numbers to the Commission.
“We’ve hosted 21 groups with providing Manhattan an estimated economic impact of over 2 million dollars,” said Brad Everett, 2015 CVB steering committee chairman.
In total, the CVB submitted 18 bids in the first quarter along with over 520 sales calls.
