Last fall, the City Council approved a half-cent sales tax surcharge to pay for street repairs in Kewanee.
On Monday, the council received some vital information they’ll need to spend that money wisely.
Engineers from Hutchison Engineering presented a program at Monday’s council meeting on the pavement index they performed on local streets late last year.
Two engineers drove over more than 80 miles of Kewanee streets and recorded the condition of the pavement and shoulders or curbs. They also noted any potential drainage issues that would have to be addressed in any street repairs.
The engineers didn’t study the state highways through Kewanee, as the Illinois Department of Transportation makes the decisions on maintaining those streets.
Ashley Kessler, a design engineer with Hutchison, was one of the two who conducted the behind-the-wheel study. She showed the council videos shot by the engineers.
Based on a study of those videos, the engineers rated each street on a four-point scale: Excellent, good, fair and poor.
Kessler said 46.2 miles of streets — just over half of the miles driven — were rated “poor.”
Listed as “fair” were 27.7 miles, or 34 percent, of the miles driven. “Good” ratings were given to 5.16 miles and 2.3 miles were rated “excellent.”
Councilman Chris Colomer said the council should select some of the “poor” streets for repairs, and some of the more highly-rated streets for maintenance, to keep them in good condition.
Another Hutchison engineer, J.D. Schulte, agreed. He cautioned against taking a “worst first” approach and said the council should spend some of its money on maintenance of better streets.
Schulte suggested getting traffic counts on some side streets before deciding which areas to fix first.
A regular street maintenance program was also suggested, and Mayor Gary Moore wholeheartedly agreed.
He said he has been mayor for seven years, and “I’ve been asking for a street maintenance program since Day One.”
Those requests, though, have “fallen on deaf ears,” Moore said.
Local retailers started collecting the additional half-cent tax on Jan. 1. The council hopes that enough money will be collected to allow street work this construction season.
Councilman Adam Cernovich said it’s important to let Kewaneeans see that the sales tax is producing results.
“We’ve got to get projects across the finish line,” Cernovich said.
Chris Berry, the city’s public works director, said a map will be posted on the city’s website showing how each street the engineers studied was rated.
