On Monday, the Public Works Board, which exists to oversee the implementation of the Sidewalk Improvement District (SID), met to decide on a course of action after bids had been received for the first phase of sidewalk replacement. As it turned out, the lowest bid, which was a half million dollars less than the highest bid, was still about $35,000 more than the amount available for the project. As a consequence, two of the eight areas designated for sidewalk replacement have been removed from the list: Third Street from Union to Partition street, west side, and Sixth Street from Rope Alley to State Street, west side.
The project, reduced in size, is expected to cost $273,985. The Public Works Board agreed to pay $50,000 back to the general fund as a first installment to repay the $500,000 taken from the general fund to finance the SID project upfront. The work at the six sites is expected to be done in October.
At last night's Common Council meeting, a resolution was approved authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with Frank Vosburgh & Sons. The resolution, which includes the bids received from all five contractors who submitted bids, can be found here.
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Let’s do some math…
ReplyDeleteBy having AI analyze the street grid and accounting for missing sidewalks and triangular intersections, etc, there are around 350-400 block’s length segments of sidewalks in the city limits of Hudson. With the money raised by the current fee system, they will end up doing only 7 segments. So, let’s assume there’s 375 segments. At the current rate (assuming prices stay flat, which they won’t), it would take around 57 years to replace all sidewalks. Ok, let’s say half are currently up to snuff, that’s around 24 years to fix the ones not up to code, and this ignores entropy and further decay. I welcome any corrections to my estimates and math.
To get this on a 10-year cycle, the city will need to raise the fee 5x. To get it done in 5 years, we’ll all have to pay 10x. So anywhere from $1,000-$2,000 annually per property owner.
And let’s not forget they must pay back a half a million to the general fund reserve, which is currently below what the state recommends. No wonder the mayor is using money budgeted for grant writing to put in some stop signs, because Hudson can’t afford to accept grants since we have barely any reserves to borrow from to front the work before we get reimbursed from said grants.
Will the current pace satisfy the DOJ, which put Hudson under an order to remedy? Will a half-century repair cycle suffice? Probably not. So expect to pay more to fix the sidewalks that absentee and derelict property owners neglected and the city never enforced.
If you just watch these meetings, look at the budget, look at revenue, look at the city trying to add more subsidized housing that will draw city services and infrastructure, but pay almost not properly taxes to cover… then do some math on the back of a napkin, you see a budget death spiral and a tax bomb that’s on the way, especially shocking after the upcoming and overdue assessment revaluation. We will all have to pay more (including renters), and double for those long time property owners who have not been reassessed in a decade.
As Samuel L, Jackson said in Jurassic Park: “Hold on to your butts…”