Potholes Cheaper To Maintain Than Streets Downtown Post Falls Residents Want Road Repairs, But Some Can’t Afford Them

They’ve driven the pothole-ridden streets of central Post Falls for years.

They’ve complained about them for years, too.

Just the same, some residents of the city’s older neighborhoods would rather live with their rough and ragged streets than pay the high cost of replacing them.

“I can’t afford them,” said Edna Poston as she crossed the patched-up 11th Street to reach her mailbox on the street’s gravel and dirt shoulder. “I’m on Social Security. The roads are bad, but I don’t know. …”

Poston is like many of the residents who live in the 23-block downtown area that’s being considered for a local improvement district.

The district would be the first of six proposed districts to replace streets and install curbs and sidewalks throughout Post Falls.

“All six we’re contemplating to be around $10 million in total,” said John Hendrickson, city administrator. “In order to hopefully induce and encourage these people in these LIDs, the city was willing to put up a certain match.”

That match will be one-third of the cost, which is expected to be about $1.3 million to $1.5 million for the first 23 blocks. The property owners between Spokane and Idaho streets, and from Ninth to 12th avenues, are voting on how extensive they want the project to be, or whether they want new streets at all.

So far, the ballots show mixed opinion. The deadline for residents to return the forms is Friday.

A few residents want new streets and sidewalks, an option that would cost each property owner about $2,500 to $6,300, depending on the length of their lot.

More popular is the option that calls for new crushed-rock and asphalt streets with curbs, but no sidewalks. That would cost about $2,000 to $5,200 per property owner.

A large number of property owners don’t want to pay for any improvements, but it’s not because they don’t think they’re needed.

“You can’t get blood out of a turnip,” Arlene Bigger wrote the city on her returned ballot. She and others pointed out that Post Falls property owners already have some of the highest tax rates in the county.

Of the first 29 petitions returned to the city, 12 were opposed outright.

“Between taxes and everything else around here, you are chasing the people that have lived here all our lives out of here,” wrote resident Anne Calkins. “If this is what you call progress, it stinks.”

City officials aren’t anxious to force the project on the neighborhood, even though they legally can form an LID without the residents’ approval. If the neighborhood doesn’t accept the city’s offer of matching funds, the city will offer it to another neighborhood, officials said.

Mayor Jim Hammond told residents at a recent workshop that the City Council has not had the courage to bring the LID forward in the past, even though the issue has been “stirring and stirring” for more than a decade.

Councilman Gus Johnson pursued it vigorously when he joined the council more than a year ago, after talking with residents in the neighborhood during his campaign. Streets were one of their biggest concerns, he said.

“One thing I won’t do is force this thing down people’s throats,” he said. But, he added, “if just one neighborhood does it, and everyone sees how nice it comes out, everyone will want to do it.”

Those who cannot pay for the project initially can make annual payments over 10 years, but the financing comes with 7 percent to 8.15 percent interest rates.

The debt acts as a lien against the property, which makes it more difficult to sell.

Like many of his neighbors, Phil Mielcarek is not enthused about the prospect of paying for new pavement, but he doesn’t like the alternative - spending tax money to constantly patch the crumbling chip-sealed streets.

“I feel the city should be putting more money in than they are,” he said. “We have a lot of residents in this area who are on fixed incomes.”

But, he said, “I’m going to go for it. … If we vote this down in this area, they’ll just go and do it in another area. We’re caught between a rock and a hard spot.”

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