When Paula and I moved to Junction City a few years when I began here as City Manager, we naturally looked for a home to live in as my contract did require City Residency, but we also desire to live and be part of the community I work in. After looking at a numbers of houses that could meet to our desires and needs, we decided the best option for us was to build a home and choose a lot on the West side of town near Junction City Middle School.
Each day I have about a 2 1/2-mile trip to the office. Of course, sometimes I take the most direct and quickest route to the City Office, but often I attempt to take different routes to work so I can travel to more parts of the City. Often I just can’t get away from the office to drive around and see what is happening in the City. Junction City is large enough of a community that I don’t get to all parts of the City on a regular basis unless you make an effort to.
As I take the alternate routes to work I can see an area where I received a complaint about or where I know that certain work is being done. This morning, I drove through a neighborhood that is part of the City’s Street Improvement project for 2023. This year the contractor which submitted the low bid will do milling and asphalt overlay in portions of the City with the total project cost being about $1.6 million. I know when this work is done, there will be people who are inconvenienced, but I am sure they will appreciate the finished project. Sometimes we are asked how streets are chosen each year for the major street projects. It is not a just a “guess what is next” deal, but streets are evaluated and rated. We also attempt to have logical areas and not a street here and one there as moving around for a short stretch adds to the cost. Yes, we here of other areas that need to be addressed, but to do that something else has to be cut. Simply it does boil down to funds available, and that affects the property taxes we pay. We are already looking at the streets for 2024. One possible area includes 6th Street from Washington to Eisenhower. The only issue is that is a long and wide section of street and “eats” up the budget. Again, we are playing catchup from work not being done in the past.
Other days when I drive to the office I head up to what we know as the “Land Bank” area. The Land Bank was formed after a number of subdivisions with Special Benefit Districts were not built on and in essence came in default and went to the County Tax Sale. Most lots did not sell, and the Land Bank was formed to market these lots. This Land Bank was different than most as in many cities Land Banks are formed to “clean-up areas of a City, but here we had lots with need streets, curb and gutter, and water and sewer lines in place and these lots were spread of a large area. I am not going to rehash all of the “Special Assessment” issues today, but we all know that these assessments then were part of the laree City debt that has been dealt with. There has been a great deal of interest in these lots over the last couple of months and about 200 lots have been sold in the past couple of months. Since the Land Bank began in 2015, about 650 Land Bank lots have been sold. A number of houses have been built and there are about 15 houses under construction at this moment. The sale of Land Bank lots was a real experiment. 8 years ago, there were many ideas of how to market the lots, but after trial and error, a system has been found to get lots sold and now houses built. It was not perfect and there were some disgruntled citizens along the way, but we continue to move forward. There was no model to follow as our Land Bank was very unique.
Often when I drove to and from work I check out nuisances such as yards blighted with junk and debris or having tall grass and weeds. And yes there are the structures that need to be addressed. City staff works hard at addressing those issues, but there are many obstacles. On the blights, certified letters have to be sent and that process has become timely and sometimes
it is 2 months until the letter is returned. Then we have others that clean up a yard and just when you think the problem has been solved, more debris shows up. On the structures there is a process that also takes times. On any of these issues, the cost to the City can be great.
Yes we receive calls about Grant Avenue. This includes the streets and also blights and structures. I did not live here when Grant was a busy street but do remember driving through Fort Riley when I got mixed up by Ogden as I was traveling from Manhattan. I remember driving though the base and onto Grant Street. Of course, access to the base has changed and Grant Avenue simply does not have the traffic it once one had. Yes, it must be addressed, but there are cost factors and what would the City not do if more funds were spent on those projects.
So, some days when you see me driving all over the City on my way to and from work, I am not lost, but just traveling through the City we call “Home”. Ask Paula how often we have not just gone straight home after Church or being somewhere and instead we go look around town.