Residents To Have Their Say On Street Project
Council To Take Comments At February Meeting
CENTERVILLE - Residents will be given another chance to have their say on the city's planned Street and Utility Improvement Project.
The project, which in 2009 would see 470 additional households in Centerville connected to city water and sewer and roads reconstructed, has proved to be a thorny issue with citizens since the first public information meeting was held on Oct. 4.
Some people claim they will be assessed for costs of up to $20,000 as a result of the plans, and say they were unaware of the first meeting at which they could make their feelings known.
But at the city council meeting on Nov. 28, council members bowed to the overwhelming number of requests to schedule another public meeting.
The information meeting will be held in St. Genevieve Parish Community Center on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008 beginning at 6 p.m. A formal presentation will be made at 7 p.m., followed by a time for public questions.
Centerville Mayor Mary Capra said, "We have all been getting the e-mails [from residents], saying 'When are we going to get another chance to speak on this? When is the council going to make its decision?'"
Council Member Jeff Paar added, "It is a lot of money that the citizens are going to be putting out for this and I would want to make sure it's done correctly, so I'm not opposed to having another open house meeting."
At a previous city council meeting on Nov. 14, Council Member Linda Broussard Vickers had asked for the street improvement project to be added to the agenda for council discussion after being inundated with calls from people who insisted their roads were in perfectly good condition and they did not wish to pay for new ones.
She added, "If people want to drive on dirt, then fine, drive on dirt if 90 percent of the people are happy with that. "We get this constant barrage of people saying, 'You are forcing us to do things on our streets that are fine.'"
Some of those concerns were made verbally at a city council meeting on Oct. 24. Diane Clancy, who lives on Center Street, told the council, "We really don't have a drainage problem. Our street drains just fine when we have heavy rain. To change our street at this point is unnecessary."
Council Member Tom Lee later said, "I appreciate all their assessments that their roads are fine, but I would like to know which school they went to, to get their engineering degrees to make that assessment, because their roads aren't fine."
At the Nov. 14 meeting, Mayor Mary Capra requested that those residents who wish to express their views on the project should address their letters to Centerville City Hall, 1880 Main Street, Centerville, MN 55038, where the correspondence can be properly logged and distributed.
City Administrator Dallas Larson said that the public meetings are intended to gather information and feedback from property owners at the very early stages of the property development, and are not a substitute for the public hearings required by Minnesota Improvement Statutes Chapter 429.
"Property owner input at this early point can actually influence the project scope," he said.
Should the council order the project at a later date, assessment hearings will then be scheduled in accordance with the requirements of state law.