N. Tonawanda budget OK near
NORTH TONAWANDA — The North Tonawanda Common Council may hold one more budget session before the scheduled adoption of Mayor Lawrence V. Soos’ $40.8 million spending plan for 2009 next Tuesday.
The Council held a public hearing on the proposal Tuesday, though there was no comment on it from the handful of residents attending the hearing. During a workshop before the hearing, the Council reduced a line item for Department of Public Works equipment from $1.5 million to $750,000.
The spending plan maintains the current property tax rate of $12.62 per $1,000 of assessed valuation and would take $950,000 from the city’s fund balance of nearly $3 million. The general fund budget also includes $250,000 for a technology upgrade in all city departments.
The proposed water budget calls for a rate increase to $2.70 from $2.30 per $1,000 gallons, and the sewer rate would increase to $4.50 from $4 per $1,000 gallons.
Meanwhile, City Engineer Dale Marshall said two street reconstruction projects are under way and the demolition of nine boathouses on the city’s Weatherbest Slip is set.
Marshall said a $700,000 replacement of the water main on Payne Avenue between Walck Road and Meadow Drive was recently completed and the streets that were dug up need to be replaced.
“Once you’ve put the new water main in, you’ve really scarred the streets, and the road has been damaged because of all those repairs of the road over those years. So it’s really time to get on it and redo the road,” Marshall said.
He said the sewer main replacement and road reconstruction, which will cost about $250,000, were handled as two separate projects so as not to affect water bills in the city.
The contractors got their notice to proceed and started Tuesday, he added.
Next Wednesday, contractors will start work on the Main Street streetscape improvements. The area scheduled for reconstruction is between Sweeney and Goundry streets and is about 1,000 feet in length. The area has long been neglected, Marshall said.
“On Main Street, you can’t even use the sidewalks because you’ve got to walk around used cars and parking lots. We’re reclaiming that and giving it back to pedestrians,” he said.
Contractors will be ripping up the old concrete and asphalt and putting in new sidewalks strips of greenspace, new trees, handicapped-access ramps, as well as repaving the road and putting in new crosswalks.
Marshall said that after winning its appeals in a bid to demolish nine decrepit boathouses on the north side of the Weatherbest Slip, he has issued a notice to proceed to the contractor to raze them.
“They don’t meet any building code known to man. They’re on city property, and we’re demolishing the boathouses,” he said.
Marshall said a century-old city storm sewer runs along that slip. It drains River Road, as well as the Twin Cities Highway.
“It’s falling apart, and I really have to demolish the boathouses to get at our infrastructure underneath and replace it. It’s not like we’re being a mean landlord,” Marshall said.
