Greendale's Southway Slated for Street Rehabilitation Costing $347,000

Greendale residents living near Southway between Broad Street and Downing Street may find themselves driving past orange construction barrels next summer.

Rehabilitation of that section of the road is being recommended as part of the Village's 2013 Budget.

The project would cost an estimated $347,000. In addition, the village board is considering spending $300,000 on streetlight replacement, and $150,000 to Those projects are on top of the $355,000 budgeted for normal street repair throughout the village.

The total recommended Capital Improvement Budget for 2013 is $1.5 million compared with just under $1.3 million for 2011. The Village Board met on October 31 to conduct its third and final work session on the upcoming budget.

At the meeting, an engineer for the village explained that local streets are deteriorating at a faster rate than they are being repaired and that many of the streetlights are 'a ticking time bomb' considering their age. 

Village President John Hermes stated his support for the proposed street projects, saying, "It's a basic right and an expectation of our citizens to have good roads. You know you are in Greendale when you drive into it because of the quality of our streets compared to surrounding communities. Deferred road maintenance is not good stewardship on our part." 

Trustee Carl Genz disagreed in part because of the struggling economy, suggesting that perhaps the street rehabilitation needed to be scaled back to just the bare necessities, such as spot repairs.

"Are residents willing to see this as a priority if they are having trouble putting food on their tables at home?"

Trustee Jim Birmingham agreed. He pointed to the drop in assessed value of many Greendale homes this year, and said he finds it hard to justify an increase in taxes on the average Greendale homeowner. He said he would like to see a zero increase in the village's portion of the tax rate, to go along with the zero increase in the tax levy for 2013.

Greendale Clerk/Treasurer Kathy Kasza said that while that is doable, it would provide minimal savings to individual homeowners and might require taking money out of the village's fund balances, something the village tries to avoid in order to have more cash available if the budgetary picture gets worse in the next couple of years.

The next meeting on the budget will be a Finance Committee Public Hearing scheduled for Monday, November 28.

The final budget will be adopted at a meeting of the Village Board on December 6.