Dear Neighbors;
My mission as your mayor has been to uplift our quality of life by making us cleaner, safer and to build a strong sense of community from our wonderful diversity.
In the last three years we have reduced crime, stopped the flooding, improved our appearance with cleaner streets and parks, and have engaged our new neighbors with bilingual services. In this upcoming fiscal year, I will be making a strong proposal to upgrade our community even further.
We must invest in our streets. Our major corridors, Kenilworth Avenue and Decatur Street, are not the beautiful gateways to our community that they should be. Our side streets are literally falling apart, and our children walk to the bus stops in the middle of the road because most streets do not have sidewalks.
In the past, our town received street funding from the Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), which is disbursed by the county government. A few years ago, they changed the regulations so this money cannot he used for infrastructure: neither streets, sidewalks, lighting nor parks can be funded with this money.
That has left us with an unfunded necessity. For the past two years we have worked to find funding through other means: programs, grants, etc. We have had some success: the new lighting going up on Kenilworth and a $25,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust for Decatur Street are examples, but it is not enough.
We propose establishing a new capital improvement fund dedicated to streets, sidewalks, and lighting. This will support a long term Capital Improvement Plan, which will be funding through long term financing (for example, 30-year loans) and other grants and funding, as it is available.
This will require a new dedicated capital improvement tax. It will be modest but will be in addition to what we already pay in property taxes.
We have no choice. As higher levels of government fail to invest in communities, they pass on the costs to us. In recent years, Edmonston has had to take more responsibility in code enforcement, land use, and building and apartment inspections because other levels of government simply aren't doing it anymore.
We have less flexibility in our budget to dedicate money to new projects, because all revenue gains in property taxes are offset by inflation, driven by high energy costs, insurance premiums, among other increases.
Allowing any aspect of our quality of life to decay is unacceptable. Since we have to shoulder the responsibility ourselves, we will.
The result will be family-friendly streets and sidewalks that are welcoming, beautiful and safe, that tie our community together and connect us with the rest of the world. These projects will outlast you and me, serving visitors and residents for generations to come.
Your Mayor,
Adam
adamortiz@gmail.com
