Saturday, January 15, 2000
Project a model for road levies
Grant paying for rebuilding
BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COLERAIN TOWNSHIP — The township has received a state grant that will reconstruct several residential roads in the Compton Estates subdivision.
The project, however, is also being pointed to as an example of what having a dedicated road levy does for a community.
The township was awarded the $878,000 grant last month from the State Capital Improvement Program, administered by the Ohio Public Works Commission.
Dennis Chapman, township public works director, said the project will include reconstruction of Chopin Drive and Orangewood Drive. Curbs and pavement will be replaced, work will be done on storm sewers and the grade will be adjusted to eliminate water problems.
Both streets are more than 35 years old, Mr. Chapman said.
“It becomes more cost-effective to go ahead and replace,” Mr. Chapman said. “It's a better-riding street. You get an age and life out of your materials. It'll mean a new street.”
The total cost of the project is more than $1 million. Work is scheduled to be completed by December 2001.
Colerain is one of 19 communities in Hamilton County due to receive more than $13 million in grants and loans this year to pay for infrastructure projects like reconstructing and widening streets, improving sewer systems and repairing bridges.
For the most part, officials in communities that have received the state grants and loans over the years maintain that it has allowed them to do work that would otherwise not get done at all, or be done piecemeal.
Colerain officials take it a step further and say not only that the project would not be undertaken, but also that they would not have had a chance at getting the grant without being able to come up with the more than $200,000 in matching funds.
The township's road levy — a new continuing 2-mill road levy — was defeated last November by voters. The money for this match was committed before the levy defeat.
The township is seeking a 1.5-mill continuing road levy on the March 7 ballot. Money generated by the road levy can be used to leverage state grants by providing the matching money needed.
“There's no way we can afford to do these things without these grants,” Trustee Joseph Wolterman said. “That's why it's important to have the levy to take care of these things.”
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