Complete Document - City of Auburn

Budget Message (continued) May 28, 2002During your term, you stepped to the plate for the Schools when the Governor declaredproration by providing an additional $500,000 to blunt the impact of the State cuts.Furthermore, you provided a supplement of $325,000 for fiscal years 2000 and 2001 and$143,403 in the current year to help the Schools while it got its financial house in order.This represents a total of $1,293,403 in funding supplemental to the fifteen mill equivalentfunding to Auburn City Schools during your term.One of the City’s challenges is to maintain adequate infrastructure to accommodatethe needs of current citizens, as well as those who are moving to Auburn because of theeducational opportunities and quality of life found here. You have invested heavily ininfrastructure to ensure that the City’s streets, drainage, and sewerage system provide highquality service to our citizens. Improvements to major roads, such as South College Street,East Glenn Avenue, Webster Road, and Moore’s Mill Road, have been completed. Newsections or extensions of existing streets to make traffic flow more smoothly have been builton Dean Road, Longleaf Drive, Watercrest Boulevard, and Veterans Boulevard. Trafficsafety has been improved through the installation of traffic signals at these high volumeintersections: Grove Hill Road/Moores Mill Road, North Dean Road/East University Drive,Mall Parkway/East University Drive and Longleaf Lane/South College Street. The contractwith the County has provided the resources to resolve a long-standing issue overmaintenance of the County-owned roads in the City limits and many of the unpaved streetsthat once were County roads have been paved.A high percentage of the streets within the City have been resurfaced over the pastfour years because of the priority you have placed on street maintenance. Severalintersections have been widened or improved- Dean Road/Opelika Road, Moore’s MillRoad/Ogletree Road, Moore’s Mill Road/East University Drive, Webster Road fromPumphrey Drive to McMillan Street, and others. Sidewalks have been built at a muchgreater rate than at any time in the City’s history: South College Street, Dean Road, RossStreet, Cary Drive, Samford Avenue, Bragg Avenue, Shelton Mill Road, Wright Street, DeanRoad, South Gay Street, Drake Avenue, and more. Bike trails have been established onmany of the major streets and the Charlotte and Curtis Ward Bikeway has been dedicated.You have commissioned a comprehensive storm drainage study and haveappropriated the money necessary to address the most serious drainage problems in theCity. Work on several of those problems has been completed, some are underconstruction, and some will be placed out to bid in the near future. Much stifferrequirements for detention facilities and erosion control will prevent the need in the future ofa major effort like the one this Council has made to ensure that future residents will not besubjected to flooding. You have authorized the purchase of the wastewater treatmentplants through which the City is able to upgrade our treatment capacity and quality and toextend sanitary sewer lines to areas that are now served with septic tanks. Your proactivesteps with the wastewater system will have a long-term positive effect on Auburn’s qualityof life as we grow.This Council has been concerned about children. You have placed the highestpriority on the quality of education provided our children in the City Schools but you havealso supported the vast improvement of the City’s recreational facilities that serve children.You have built the Duck Samford baseball-softball facility that is one of the finest youthcomplexes in the State of Alabama, as evidenced by its selection to serve as the site of thisyear’s State Dixie Youth tournament this summer. You have authorized the planning andconstruction of a state of the art soccer complex on Wire Road and the Town Creek Park, a21