Residents rocked by gravel inaction

“I get upset every time I drive this road,” said  Hill City resident Ed Sundby. “Every time the dust rolls up, every time a truck drives up, every time it rains.”

Sundby has been coming to Hill City since he was a teenager. He has owned his home on Deegan Drive for seven years and lives in it full time. He’s tried “for years” to get the city to pave his street and “it seems to go nowhere.”

He lives on a street with 28 other houses and two daycare centers. Like other residents in the neighborhood, he’s questioning how the city can make a project like the rehabbing of the senior center a priority when residents don’t even have paved roads.

“I wanna see some action. I pay $6,000 in taxes and what do I get?” he asked.

He thinks the city doesn’t listen to his concerns, which he brings to them repeatedly at common council meetings. The meeting minutes, however, don’t reflect  this.

“They don’t even print our public comment. People need to realize what our comments are,” he said.

Finance officer Stacia Tallon, who writes the minutes for the city, says that the minutes reflect the theme of the public comments received. Sundby attended the Aug 9 city council meeting but there was no mention of his public comment in regards to the roads. 

The city’s argument is that the road won’t last with just a $50,000 paving job. City administrator Brett McMacken said the city is slowly putting money aside for road improvements but that it takes time.

“We have to do this right. It’s not easy to put a paved street in an already developed area,” McMacken said, adding that “it’s a significant stretch of road.”

Deegan Drive is 1,663 feet in length.

The city estimates a minimum of $325,000 to pave the road, which includes engineering costs. But residents say they have had enough of the city’s stalling and want action, any action. They say the road has been engineered more than once and the estimated cost one year ago to pave it was about $77,000. The city contends the road would need to be looked at by an engineer who would need to “capture elevations and design not only the road surface, but also curb, gutter and address storm water drainage” according to McMacken. In addition, drainage will involve looking at the current storm drains and upgrading them as needed and placing inlets in the curb/gutter only.

McMacken says it’s expensive upfront to pave streets and is more cost effective to maintain gravel. He refers to roads like Deegan as a “sin of the past” and agrees they should have beem paved. The city now requires developers to pave roads in subdivisions.

But for Sundby and his neighbor LeRoy Barker, who lives on Lacy’s Court,  the city’s lack of action is eroding their patience.

“We bought our house in 2012,” Barker said. “The realtor told me they had plans to pave the road.” He’s attended council meetings ever since and has heard “so many excuses year after year.” Barker says he’s sat down with McMacken face to face with no action being taken. 

“I know there are roads worse than ours. But we have a lot of traffic. It’s not safe for young kids,” he said.

He wants to remind the city and the public that “these are city roads” and that people in his development shouldn’t have to pay for the mistake the city made when it didn’t require the developer to pave the roads in the neighborhood.

Barker would be happy with some sort of plan or action on the city’s part.

“We never get any response. It’s like they don’t listen to us,” he said.

Citing nearby Sunset Creek, Barker would be content with a simple paving job versus an elaborately engineered street.

“All we need is asphalt. That would make us happy,” he said.

A complete road surface assessment from Long Branch Civil Engineering done June 15, 2020 shows Deegan Road and Lacy’s Court as fifth and sixth respectively in terms of priority ranking. Both got recommendations to “reblade” but were considered to be in “excellent” or “ very good” status. Rankings were based on South Dakota Condition Survey Guides for City Streets. The cost to reblade both streets were estimated to be about $36,000.

Barker says his neighbors got tired of attending meetings and not getting answers. But he is not dissuaded.

“I’m hoping it gets done. I may be dead when the roads are paved,” he said with a laugh, adding at least they’d be done for the future residents in a neighborhood that keeps growing.

The Aug. 23 city council meeting showed roads as a discussion item on its agenda. Both sides remarked at how civil the conversation was despite it coming nearly two hours after the meeting began.

Figures presented by the town dated Aug. 4 show the cost to pave all city streets at $2,961,350 with engineering design costs just over $207,000. 

McMacken made clear that the city was not going to put asphalt over gravel.

“That’s a big waste of time,” he said.

However he listened patiently as Barker addressed the council and said “this is a beautiful city. We need to pave these roads.” 

Mayor Kathy Skorzewski tried to guide the discussion asking for input  from the council on how they wanted to proceed. She also explained that the city doesn’t have the ability to use Business Improvement District  money for road projects. The city does have  about $300,000 saved for road maintenance or paving.

“We can leverage what we have in place. Three hundred thousand dollars is a far cry from what we need as far as the entire project,” Skorzewski said. She also agreed to sit down with Barker face to face to discuss the issues.

Alderman Jason Gillaspie wanted to see a prioritized list of streets put together for the next meeting. He also wanted to see what restructuring the city’s current road bond debt would look like. Whether the city would take out a new bond for new road paving or look to pay off its existing bond sooner and save the money for future paving projects were ideas tossed around, with no action taken. 

The city restructured $1.8 million on road bond debt in 2015, which is set to be paid off in 2026.

Barker, whose wife teased that he has made paving roads his mission in life, was pleased with the discussion and the city’s willingness to finally address the issue.

“It looks like maybe we’re gonna get something done,” Barker said. “Just that I can see something getting done makes me happy. I approve of what I’m hearing tonight. There’s been more action tonight than I had in the last nine years.”