EDIE ZUVANICH Special to the Press
A project that has had residents questioning city leaders’ motivations took the first steps toward funding this week. The Taylor City Council has prioritized a $1 million investment on Murphy Street as part of a $20,485,000 package of capital improvement projects to be paid for by certificates of obligation.
“Before this weekend I had never heard of Murphy Street,” said Taylor resident Pam Harper, speaking at a Jan. 10 council meeting.
Harper described the street as abandoned, and went on to say, “I think it would be a terrible idea to spend that million dollars on Murphy Street. Pay for the street repairs where people live.” Resident Albert Janecka agreed.
“For decades you told them you don’t have the money to repair the streets. And you don’t. I get that,” he told council. “But now you’re going to spend a million dollars on a dead end street with no buildings on it, nobody living on it.”
Janecka said hundreds of people drive on rough streets every day in Taylor, and it would be a “slap in the face” for council to instead fix a street nobody drove on.
With a private revitalization project for Murphy Street in the works, Janecka and Harper both called out council for spending money they agree benefits the developer rather than the citizens.
Assistant City Manager Tom Yantis confirmed that the Murphy Street Revitalization Project did affect the decision to upgrade Murphy, but wasn’t the only reason. The $1 million will rehabilitate public infrastructure including streets, sidewalks, water lines and sewer lines along Murphy at East Fifth Street.
“We’ve got failing infrastructure. We have sewer lines that are failing and we have undersized water lines in this area that don’t provide adequate fire flow so we would already be doing some projects in to address those issues,” Yantis said. “Even though there aren’t houses on Murphy or Fifth Street those sewer and water lines serve other areas in that neighborhood and they have to continue to function even if there are no houses on that street.”
Council member Dwayne Ariola received emails and calls from residents angry about the issue.
“We’ve got residents that live on roller coaster drives. I don’t see the reasoning of investing a million dollars on something that’s not developed when we have households that have paid taxes for their lifetime that could be worked on,” Ariola said. “I don’t understand the reasoning for donating a million dollars to a developer so that his property is worth more in the long run.”
Yantis said the investment in Murphy Street was discussed at a council retreat in spring last year because it aligns with the goals of the comprehensive plan to promote infill development in order to generate increased tax revenues.
“Council said, let’s put our infrastructure investment dollars with the infill proposed development that’s going to happen in this area so there will be a significant increase in taxable value,” he reminded council members.
The Murphy Street rehabilitation represents $1 million of the $4.75 million dedicated to street maintenance in this year’s proposed debt package. The remainder is earmarked for TH Johnson and Lake Drive.
City Council is scheduled to adopt a resolution directing staff to proceed with the next step in securing funding at their Jan. 25 meeting.
