{"id":3142,"date":"2023-06-04T13:20:34","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T17:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=3142"},"modified":"2023-06-04T13:20:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T17:20:38","slug":"nearly-depleted-sidewalk-fund-not-necessarily-a-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/04\/nearly-depleted-sidewalk-fund-not-necessarily-a-bad-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly-depleted sidewalk fund not necessarily a bad thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Decatur’s 50-50 sidewalk improvement program is nearly depleted for this year, and Mayor Dan Rickord says that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally, this is great. It means we’re improving our neighborhoods,\u201d he said following a report on the program presented by Building\/Zoning Superintendent Curt Witte at a city council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city puts $50,000 into the program each year, and began this year with $64,557.69, which included some carryover from last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already this year, Witte explained, $29,114.31 has been spent improving 10 sidewalks. That leaves $35,443.38 in the fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the city has 11 signed contracts for more improvements which had not yet been started at the time of the report. Those contracts will require an expenditure of $28,372.74, leaving just $7,070.64 for this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of that $7,000-plus, \u201cwe might be able to squeeze out another four or five (improvements),\u201d Witte said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once those funds are depleted, Witte added, his department will sign no more contracts for 2023. \u201cWe will, however, start taking contracts for next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the 50-50 program, the home\/ business owner pays 50% of the cost of a sidewalk it wishes to improve, with the city picking up the other half. Under a program revision this year, however, residential improvements may be done with the owner paying just 25% and the city taking care of the rest; then the owner has one year to pay back the city for the remaining 25%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The City of Decatur’s 50-50 sidewalk improvement program is nearly depleted for this year,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-3142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/9977C78F9E494FF4BED6BEA25F8ADD25.jpg?fit=374%2C576&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}