Street work may cost you more; Stillwater raises percentage properties benefiting from roadwork pay

BY JONATHAN YOUNG

THE GAZETTE

Stillwater residents will be charged more when the city does road work on their blocks in the future. But the city hopes the change wont be drastic.

On May 20 the city council approved an increase to the portion of road projects the city will charge in assessments to homeowners.

In recent years, the city has asked homeowners whose properties benefit from reconstruction or resurfacing projects to pony up half the cost of the project. The other half of the money has come from other funds the city had built up.

Those funds have run out.

In fact, for the past two years, the city has only done projects on state-aid roads main roads that act as collector streets leading to a county or state highway because the city receives money from the state gas tax to help pay for those projects.

The shortfall didnt happen without warning, however. When I came here 12 years ago, I told the council then, this is not a sustainable way to fund projects, City Administrator Larry Hansen said.

About eight years ago, Hansen estimated, he asked the city council to consider other options for funding street projects, and the council at that time rejected the proposals.

And so we got by, Hansen said.

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Street work may cost you more; Stillwater raises percentage properties benefiting from roadwork pay