Wentzville Prop T Approval Keeps Road Projects on Track

(The following press release was issued by the City of Wentzville.)

According to Mayor Nick Guccione and the city’s Interim Public Works Director, Douglas Lee, voter approval of Wentzville’s Proposition T on Tuesday meant the city should be able to keep up with important road development needs.

Had Proposition T failed, it would have been a far different story.

“If voters hadn’t approved Prop T,” said Lee “we would have had to limit current street maintenance programs and we would have been unable to proceed with new roadway construction.”

Proposition T extended the city’s current Transportation Sales Tax (TST) rate for another 20 years, after the current TST expires on December 31, 2014.

The city already maintains 116 miles of dedicated concrete and nearly 34 miles of asphalt roadways, along with 219 miles of sidewalks. The annual maintenance budget to keep all these paved surfaces up to city standards is about one million dollars. Without the continued revenue assurance the city’s TST brings in, road improvements and new road-development projects would have been put on hold.

According to information presented to the city’s Board of Aldermen in February of this year, maintenance of existing streets and sidewalks were the only projects that rated a number-one priority ranking in the city budget. Improvement and new-development projects fell further down the list, with some important projects falling significantly lower. Much of the Village Center project was given a rating of seven or higher, and Phases II and III of the N. Pointe Prairie project bottomed out the list with rankings of 12 and 13, respectively.

Mayor Guccione said the continued revenue stream Proposition T provides also gives the city the ability to secure additional funding for road projects through federal, state and county sources.

“Most of these grants require the city to demonstrate an ability to fund at least a portion of the project costs,” said Guccione, “and without a Transportation Sales Tax, we wouldn’t have been able to do that. We would have been at a standstill while those funds went to other communities.”

Guccione went on to say bond sales are also tied to the city’s ability to demonstrate it has a steady revenue source, and he believes addressing the dangerous at-grade crossing along Highway 61 is a good example of how the TST revenue can be used.

“MoDOT has told us they don’t have the money to implement a long-term solution for this problem, such as constructing an overpass. We haven’t given up on finding a permanent solution, however. With the current Transportation Sales Tax rate extended through 2035, we have options like new bond sales available to us, which didn’t exist before Tuesday,” said Guccione.

A citizen survey Wentzville conducted in 2010 revealed residents felt traffic flow and congestion management was one of the services the city should give the most emphasis to over the next two years. In response, city officials have made roads a top priority. With the extension of the TST firmly in place through 2035, officials feel they can stay on track with what residents want.