More options to fund street work presented to council

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With a couple of new options presented Monday, the Snyder City Council continues to look for ways to put the decision of whether to take on the expense of street improvements on anyone other than themselves.
Dr. Berry Jordan told the council about the BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) Grant program. Jordan said the U.S. Department of Transportation annually provides $450 million in grants for rural communities.
He suggested emphasizing the impact bad streets could have on public safety in a grant application, which would have to be filed by July 15 for this year’s grant cycle.
“For the fire, EMS, police, using our roads without them existing in a state of good repair, these services could be delayed or not reliably delivered in a timely manner,” his statement to the council read.
The grants come with an 80 percent local match and range in size from $1 million to $25 million for a single project.
Last year, Texas received five BUILD grants, including three rural-area grants — with two of those projects located in West Texas and awarded to the Texas Department of Transportation for state highway projects. The third rural grant was awarded in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
Gayle Summers renewed her calls to abolish the Development Corporation of Snyder (DCOS) and to take the sales taxes currently dedicated to economic development and shift the money to street maintenance.
She said with a street maintenance fee, only people with city utilities would bear the burden of paying for streets anyone can use. Disbanding the DCOS and funding street repairs and improvements through sales taxes would spread the expense over more people.
DCOS Executive Director Brooke Proctor said closing the DCOS office would be like hanging a sign on the highway saying Snyder is closed for business.
“You put a nail in the coffin of any growth. You’re advertising that you’re closed for business,” she said. 
“You’re going to ruin growth with higher taxes,” Morgan West answered.
DCOS board chair Mark McClain said although the DCOS doesn’t hit a home run with each business it tries to recruit to Snyder, the office does have an important role to play.
“When you have a win, it can bring in 50 jobs and transform the community,” he said.
Those comments were made during the public forum at Monday’s council meeting. Later the council and city staff discussed additional funding options.
Issuing $4 million in bonds, with $1 million set aside for each district to decide how to spend, is one of those options the council discussed Monday. The bonds would have a seven-year payback and the debt service would be funded by a nearly 12 cents per $100 valuation tax increase. That would be more than a 25 percent increase over the current 47 cents per $100 tax rate.
“I think this is something we could take to the public. We could do nothing or add a minimal tax cost,” council member Vernon Clay said.
He said that the citizens he’s spoken with are opposed to a street maintenance fee because “it would not be fair to everybody.” He said people also fear it would remain in place forever, unlike a bond with a pre-determined payoff date.
When asked by Snyder Mayor Tony Wofford what the city could do with $4 million, Public Works Director Eli Torres said between eight and 10 miles of sealcoating could be completed by the city and county crews for about $500,000. As another point of reference, the city spent just more than $500,000 to resurface an approximately 8/10-mile stretch of 37th Street recently.
Sealcoating involves applying a hot mix on top of asphalt pavement to provide protection from the elements.
“We need to save what we have. We need to sealcoat the streets we can save and then see what we have,” Torres said. “It’s going to be expensive.”
Clay said it was time to reach a decision.
“We have to decide something or are we just going to information ourselves to death?” Clay asked. “We have until Aug. 19 to do the bond. We can do something with $4 million, get some kind of dirt moving and be doing something.”
Wofford said the city didn’t need to rush into any decision.
“I’d like to go into it with more confidence,” he said. “I don’t want to rush it. If the voters turn it down, we’d have to find an alternative.”
The council did not take any votes or ask the city staff for more information following Monday’s discussion.