“We have not been able to invest in our neighborhood streets for years,” he said.
RELATED: Springfield tax increase passes at polls, Enon police levy fails
Springfield residents voted Tuesday by a wide margin to raise the city’s income tax for 5½ years from 2 percent to 2.4 percent, approving it with more than 66 percent of the vote. The same proposal failed on the November ballot by about 200 votes.
Some road work will begin this summer, Bodenmiller said, but most of it will come in future years.
“The revenues really won’t start coming in until August or September,” he said. “So this construction season will largely be missed.”
City workers are now compiling a list of streets that are in most need of repair that will be targeted for improvements this summer.
“We’ve already got some preliminary names of streets we need done,” Bodenmiller said.
Work on those roads should begin around July or August, he said.
“There’s no shortage of streets that need done,” he said. “The neighborhood streets are in rough shape in many many areas.”
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James Garringer and his wife, Nancy Garringer, hope their street will make the list soon. The Springfield couple live on Lafayette Avenue and they’ve called the city several times about potholes.
“They need to take the whole thing up and then come back and put down all new blacktop,” James Garringer said. “It would be really nice.”
Semi trucks are constantly cutting through their neighborhood, he said, causing damage to the road.
“They’ve always been very courteous,” James Garringer said of the city engineers. “And they’d always send out the … guys to fill the holes.”
The pair is happy the income tax increase passed. They both supported it.
“I love it,” he said. “We need it.”
But the Garringers said they know they’re not alone in their complaints about the roads. Most neighborhood streets in the city look the same, Nancy Garringer said.
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“You see the same condition,” she said. “They’re all bumpy.”
The success of the levy this time around was due in part to better communication, Bodenmiller said. Plus residents began to see the impact of cuts.
“The reality of the situation was sitting in more with people,” he said.
The added revenue for the city of Springfield will also reverse several cuts made to police and fire, including the closing of the police substation on West Johnny Lytle Avenue and Fire Station No. 5 on Commerce Road. Both stations will reopen on July 1.
New equipment will also be purchased for the police and fire divisions, Bodenmiller said.
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The Springfield News-Sun is committed to providing complete election coverage, including recent stories on changes to local precinct locations and the upcoming Clark-Shawnee tax levy.
By the numbers
$2 million: Money the city plans to spend on repairing neighborhood streets annually
$6.7 million: Money the income tax increase would generate annually, if approved.
2 percent: Current income tax rate in Springfield.
2.4 percent: Proposed income tax rate in Springfield through 2022.
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