East Point Mayor Earnestine Pittman warns that her city needs higher taxes to fix cash shortfalls, but she still thinks her street ought to be repaved -- even though it didn’t make the city staff’s list.
The city’s public works department recommended nine streets to be re-surfaced next year based on a computer program that scores streets by need. The staff targeted streets in poor condition that are also classified as collector or arterial and serve the most citizens.
Arrowood Drive, the street Pittman lives on, didn’t make the cut. The mayor said she and her council allies simply corrected the staff oversight when they made some changes to the list, including adding Arrowood.
“Arrowood is a main street that takes people into Atlanta and back into East Point,” she said. “Common sense would tell anybody that the first streets you fix are the main streets.”
Council member Lance Rhodes, who is constantly at odds with the mayor, said it’s less about common sense than politics.
“If the mayor and her friends would stop playing politics and repaying political favors, there is a fair and equitable way of paving our streets,” Rhodes said. “Now it wouldn’t include the mayor’s street, admittedly.”
Budget Committee Chairman Myron Cook, who often supports the mayor, said there were “probably” some politics involved.
“There is no fair way of doing the streets -- we would be better off if we had a lottery,” he said.
Pittman’s house is actually on a part of Arrowood that won’t be part of the $50,556, three-block project because the city previously repaved it, when she was on the council.
The three-quarter mile residential street is a back route to Greenbriar Mall for some. Otherwise it runs past 66 houses and connects to Black Forest Trail, another residential street.
Arrowood has little traffic, nor is it bumpy. It is not rated asarterial or connector, but rather as local.
Pittman, a sometimes controversial city executive who is never shy about speaking her mind, was typically blunt when asked why it wound up on the priority list.
“It got pushed to the top because five votes said we’re going to get this done,” she said. “Staff makes recommendations. That is what they do. . .That is not what decides what streets get paved. That is five votes. That is the same everywhere.”
The projects came up at the council meeting this week as part of discussions on the budget that begins in July. The council still has to approve the budget for the street list to be a done deal. Pittman votes as tie-breaker when the eight-member council deadlocks.
The council has been at odds for years but Pittman supporters gained the upper hand in November when mayor-backed candidates promised to roll back skyrocketing utility rates. They then balked at reducing rates for fear it would cause a financial crisis; now they’re projecting a yet-to-be decided tax hike .
East Point’s public works director, Alex Mohajer said the staff uses a point system to rate streets as “poor,” “fair,” “satisfactory” or “good.”
“We can only offer the information based on data management,” he said. “What (council members) do after that is their decision.”
Arrowood isn’t the only street subtituted for streets staff had recommended. The council has earmarked $570,000 for four projects that fall in the districts of three members of the new majority. About half the money would go to streets classified as local.
The one main street the council majority added was a section of Washington Road from Stone Road to Camp Creek Parkway, at a cost of $300,000. Staff had listed that section in fair condition and did not recommend repaving. Another section rated poor was recommended for repaving by staff and council agreed.
Part of Arrowood of is rated as poor -- but barely so. The other section to be paved is rated fair.
“I don’t want to hear about what the staff says about these streets -- they don’t even live here,” Pittman said. “ They need to go out and ride on the streets.”
Pittman denied the project poses a conflict of interest, saying she never asked for her block of Arrowood to be paved since it already had been. The city resurfaced her block three years ago, during a time of other budgetary woes.
Roots were buckling it, she said.
About the Author
