Yes, street construction can be an annoyance, but it is considered an essential tool for keeping a community’s infrastructure in a good state of repair, increasing property values, and improving the overall quality of life of a community’s residents.
For Mountain Home residents, street construction is also a good value, according to Street Director Arnold Knox, who says the typical cost-per-mile from the Mountain Home Street Department is $1 million compared to $3.4 million for a two-lane roadway mile from the Arkansas Department of Transportation.
“We’re always trying to keep the city’s tax dollars in the forefront of our minds to give Mountain Home taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck," Knox said.
“I was blessed to follow Amon Tilley (the former Mountain Home Street Director)”, says Knox. He credits Tilley for starting the street plan which will make the 200 miles of streets in the city uniform, with sidewalks and open ditches replaced with gutters and drains.
The city is able to reduce costs by recycling asphalt; having two in-house engineers, Knox and City Engineer Amy Lanning, who do surveying, design and planning; two construction crews and one maintenance crew which also lays asphalt.
“Our goal was to keep construction in house," Knox said. "We can do three times the number of streets instead of putting them out to bid. We’re saving money for future tax-payers.”
The Street Department’s annual budget is $5 million. Two-thirds of the department’s budget comes from half of the city’s one-percent sales tax, a total of $350,000 from property taxes and $900,000 from the state of Arkansas.
Part of that $900,000 from the state includes Mountain Home's portion of a temporary half-percent general sales and use tax approved by Arkansas voters in 2012.
A proposal on the Nov. 3 general ballot, Issue 1, asks if voters wish to make that temporary, 10-year half-percent sales tax to benefit state, county and city roads a permanent tax.
If Issue 1 fails, then that half-percent sales tax will cease being collected in 2022, and the funds the Mountain Home Street Departments receives from the state will be negatively affected.
“If Issue 1 on the November election ballot does not pass, we will lose $250,000,” Knox said.
Don Webb, Mountain Home City Councilman and chairman of the Street Department Committee, commended Knox and Tilley for their leadership and the way they have kept the committee informed.
“We’ve got an awesome street department," Webb said. "The employees take a lot of pride in their work. They are to be commended for their hard work and care of the equipment. I’m pretty proud of our street department.”
This summer, the city street crews have been working on projects on Gentry Street, which is located between Market Street and Coley Drive; around the Baxter Regional Medical Center campus and out at McCabe Park.
The Gentry Street project includes replacing open ditches with curbs and gutters, installing underground drainage on both sides of the street and building a sidewalk on one side of the street. This is the standard configuration for streets within Mountain Home, according to Knox.
“It took over a year-and-a-half of design and planning before we could begin the physical work," he said.
During the construction period, it can disrupt the traffic flow and be an inconvenience to homeowners. Knox and his crews do their best to minimize this, he said, but when complete residents will see a significant improvement to their street and property values. It is not uncommon for a regular frontage house to see a $10,000 to $12,000 increase in its property value following a completed street project, Knox said.
Penny Ellis, a homeowner on Gentry Street, said she appreciates how the crews tried to accommodate homeowners during construction.
“As they laid drainage pipe, they filled in dirt and gravel so we could access our driveways even though it meant having to dig part of it out to finish up the next day," she said. "The only time I wasn’t able to get into my garage was during the cement work portion.”
When Gentry Street is completed, which is expected within a few weeks, the crews will then move to Market and Thorne streets, with completion there expected at the end of 2021.
Recently the crews completed the expansion of Long Street behind the hospital to three lanes and added curbs, gutters, underground drainage, and a sidewalk. This work is now being done on Burnett Drive between Bucher Drive and Beard Drive, and will extend to Buttercup Drive.
Crews are laying new drainage pipes on Buttercup north of Burnett Drive and on Medical Plaza Drive between Hospital Drive and Buttercup.
In McCabe Park, crews are paving a trail around the creek and will soon begin constructing a bike trail in the park.
Mountain Home’s mild winters allow the crews to work on street construction and maintenance year-round, according to Knox.
In addition to street construction, repair and maintenance, the crews maintain traffic signals and signs; sweep streets; clean drainage ditches and creeks; and landscape, mow and trim weeds from city right-of-ways. During the winter, they clear snow and ice and sand city streets, and assist county and state road crews clearing city roadways.
MH Street Committee
The Mountain Home Street Committee is comprised of three City Council members, the Mayor and the Street Director. Current City Council members serving on the committee include Jim Whalen of Ward 1, Don Webb of Ward 3, and Jim Bodenhamer of Ward 4. The committee meets in Council Chambers at City Hall, 720 South Hickory Street, on the second Tuesday of each month at 12:30 p.m. The meetings are open to the public.
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The Link LonkSeptember 26, 2020 at 12:36AM
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On Easy Street: MH Street Department projects improve city's roads, raise property values - The Baxter Bulletin
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