{"id":957,"date":"2023-04-19T07:16:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T11:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=957"},"modified":"2023-04-19T07:16:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T11:16:38","slug":"city-of-decatur-ready-to-revamp-sidewalk-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/city-of-decatur-ready-to-revamp-sidewalk-program\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Decatur ready to revamp sidewalk program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decatur is moving toward a revamping of its longtime 50-50 sidewalk program in order to assist some residents who would like to participate but lack the necessary funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the current 50-50 program \u2013 which has been around so long no one knows what it began \u2013 a homeowner or business owner makes arrangements with the building and zoning department to have a new sidewalk put in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city pays 50% percent of the cost and the property owner covers the other 50%. The city puts $50,000 into the program each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building\/Zoning Superintendent Curt Witte explained at a previous board of works meeting that he has been contacted by people who would like to use the program, but lack the funds to pay the 50%. Since then, he and city Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert have put together a new plan, he told the board of works at its recent meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It would allow a home or business owner to pay 25% of the cost of the installation, with the city covering the remaining 75%. Then the property owner would have one year to pay another 25% to the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Witte said he has two people who would like to participate in the revised program and that would provide an opportunity to determine how the new way works out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gilbert said he would recommend trying it for a year, then changes could be made, if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was talk of having defined financial qualifications, but board member Tyler Fullenkamp said he would support trying the new way, without qualifications, \u201cto see how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Board member Craig Coshow agreed. \u201cI like the idea, it&#8217;s a good plan,\u201d he said before making a motion to move ahead with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur is moving toward a revamping of its longtime 50-50 sidewalk program in order<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958,"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-957","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\/04\/D55AFDB4C4944401BC3AD66A61F6C761.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957","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=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}