MARK CRESSOTTI
WESTFIELD – In his 2014 cumulative report filed with the city last week, City Engineer Mark Cressotti is seeking several million dollars in additional funding to maintain and improve the city’s infrastructure, despite Mayor Daniel M. Knapik and the city council approving additional bonds and utility fees, and increased authorization from state’s Chapter 90 to $1.2 million.
“The current estimate of annual investment to maintain our pavement’s condition is $3.2 million,” said Cressotti in the report’s short term goals. “Additional funding of $2 million annually is necessary with only $160,000 appropriated locally this fiscal year.”
Cressotti advocates for a “cocktail” approach to helping improve and maintain the city’s streets.
“A stronger investment of $500,000 in both Engineering and Department of Public Works accounts, coupled with some $300,000 from the storm water utility and pursuit of Chapter 90 allocation is recommended to bridge this gap,” he said. “The business of rebuilding a city is not cheap nor without risk, but that is the business we are in.”
According to Cressotti’s report, a total of $4,125,000 on city engineering projects during the fiscal year 2014, with funding coming from several sources.
The second part of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail’s southern portion cost $2.1 million in grant funding, while paving on West Silver Street, Court, and Old Montgomery Streets, as well as Springdale City View, Little River and Shaker Roads cost a total of $645,000 in state Chapter 90 funding.
City bonds were responsible for putting up the $200,000 for enhancements to the Park Square Green in the form of the still under construction pavillion, paid for by bond, as well as $275,000 for City Hall’s parking lot.
Water and sewer funds were used to complete projects in the Gaslight District ($800,000), sewer separation efforts on Elm Street ($60,000) and improving Noble Street’s water main ($45,000).
The $4.125 million spent by the Department represents a 126.9 percent return on investment, according to Cressotti, which blew away the Department’s 40 percent expectation at the start of 2014.
Cressotti said that the almost 127 percent return follows a modest 43.3 percent return in 2013 when the city spent $1,806,555. He attributes 2014’s massive improvement on investment return to “project development culmination delayed from (2013).”
Implementation of Cressotti’s Infrastructure Master Plan is also a major component of the report, an undertaking that has been bogged down by a lack of funding to fix the city’s roadways.
Programs dealing with traffic congestion, sewer sanitation, and streetscape improvement, as well as pavement and storm water management, all sit under the umbrella of the overall master plan, according to Cressotti, plans that are in various phases of completion.
“We live in a 340-year old city, and as with an old house, if it is not kept up and improved… it will be doomed to substandard uses and abandonment,” said Cressotti.
While a vast portion of city funding is dedicated to its schools, Cressotti reasons in the report that all of that investment will be for naught if those children leave the city.
He also worries that the city’s sizable senior population may also pack up their retirement portfolios and seek a warmer climate more devoid of potholes.
“The resolve and resources must continue to be found to address infrastructure management irrespective of the economic times,” said Cressotti, before heralding the ‘herculean’ efforts of Knapik and his city council in ‘wrestling’ to find the necessary funding as ‘nothing short of miraculous.’
