HUMBOLDT — Lower sales tax receipts and sales of gasoline have forced Humboldt city commissioners to stall the plan to improve city streets, they said at their meeting Monday night.
Even with the additional half-cent sales tax approved by voters last year, the city is looking at a drop in income of $30,000 to $50,000, said Cole Herder, city administrator. The additional tax was expected to bring in $120,000 a year.
Across the state, sales tax revenues are expected to drop anywhere from 25% to 40% because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Herder said. Until a vaccine is developed to contain the highly contagious disease, it’s difficult to determine when exactly “normal” will return.
Funding for a new grocery store still has yet to materialize, he added.
BG Consultants had prepared two plans for this year’s street program. One, costing $574,000, would have addressed 12th Street from Bridge Street past Sweatt Park and connecting to Wulf Drive, a distance of about 12 blocks. The work was for five inches of asphalt, drainage upgrades and sidewalk ramps to accommodate ADA requirements.
Option 2 is more ambitious, with about 33 blocks of street improvements by way of chip-and-seal treatment, as well as the 12th Street rebuild. The cost: $1 million.
Both would depend on asking the Kansas Department of Transportation to chip in 85% of the funding, as well as application for a Community Development Block Grant, and in-kind work by county crews.
With a Monday deadline for any KDOT grant applications, city officials agreed to postpone the plans.
With large-scale improvements on the back burner, Herder did report the city has a new device to repair potholes. In a week’s time more than 100 potholes have been repaired as well as crevices and cracks.
HUMBOLDT’S pool will likely not be open by June 15 — the date Gov. Laura Kelly has established as safe for such municipal features — and perhaps not even then.
Herder said if Iola and Chanute pools do not open, then it would put too much of a burden on Humboldt’s pool, both in numbers and in health concerns.
COUNCIL MEMBERS approved issuance of $6,325,000 in bonds to be retired through sewer revenue, to pay off higher interest loans from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment that paid for the just-completed two-year revamping of sewers and manholes throughout town. The work required 125 gallons of oil and 40 tons of rock.
The first payment of $206,638 will be made in 2021, the last “when I’m 90 years old,” Herder noted, in 2090. Payments will total $8.3 million, meaning interest for the life of debt service will be slightly less than $2 million.
In other business, council members:
— Observed a period of silence to honor longtime council member Vada Aikins, who died Saturday. Aikins was repeatedly recognized locally and statewide for her dedication to the Humboldt Council.
