Support West St. Paul Reader by becoming a patron.
The City Council’s Public Safety subcommittee will meet on Tuesday at 7 a.m. (!) to cover a few interesting topics. This is a work group of council members (Wendy Berry, Lisa Eng-Sarne, and Anthony Fernandez) charged with digging into some topics so the council can get more done.
A few items on the agenda:
- Sidewalk, trail, and crosswalk gaps: They’ll identify which places should get high priority, a big need given last year’s increase in pedestrian/bike injuries/deaths. Last fall the Council also changed the assessment policy for new sidewalks, making it a city-wide expense and not assessed on individual properties. They also committed to a tax increase to pay for it, which means some of the gaps can finally be filled.
- No parking: There’s a recommendation for no parking along Kathleen Drive between Westview and Marie, an issue a resident raised at a recent meeting.
- Carrie Street: The need for traffic calming along Carrie Street came up with the Thompson Oaks apartment. Staff has studied it and is recommending no changes based on the traffic projections.
- Housing rehab: Monday’s Open Council Work Session included a quick presentation on NeighborWorks and their housing rehab program. There’s a lot to explore for how this could work in West St. Paul to help people get loans to improve their properties.
This is initial work on all of these projects, so no matter what’s decided here, it will still come through the normal council processes.
And kudos to our council members for tackling this extra work extra early.
Support West St. Paul Reader by becoming a patron.
