Finding Money To Maintain Roads

Day 61 walkin' with Terreeeblay ... http://terreeeblay.blogspot.com/2011/03/51.html

A scripture verse I enjoyed today ... 2 Corinthians 13:11 "... be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."

I'm sure you know I like reading from diverse sources, so hopefully you won't be too surprised that I found the state of the State address by Texas governor Rick Perry interesting... http://j.mp/h4GhoQ

City Council met tonight for 4 1/2 hours.  Biggest item was continuing to work on the budget for the upcoming 2011-12 year that begins July 1.  We have some tough decisions to make -- one of the key ones is similar to the logic when you know you can save on major repairs on your car by getting regular oil changes.  You're short on money, so you postpone the oil change 2000 miles past the high end of the range you should be changing it on.  Now you're still short on money.  How many more miles do you wait before you really damage the car, costing several times more than the oil changes you didn't have enough money for in the first place.

In our case, it's regular yearly road maintenance.  We should do a reseal on a rotating basis on one-sixth of our roads every year so we get to all of them every six years.  We've already put it off, if we delay longer we'll have to rebuild many of the roads from scratch.  But it would take a tax increase in tough economic times to pay for it. 

That's a tough budget discussion.  Last night was our third visit to the subject this season, there will be more in coming weeks.  Stay tuned for more news.