The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

Published February 11, 2015

City may use NID for streets

By Jeff Thompson
CAMDENTON - Unfinished streets within the city limits may soon be drawn into its official infrastructure through proposed Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NID).
Residents living on Clint Avenue - marked with damaged asphalt and a lack of gutters and curbs - could be a test case for the procedure.

City Administrator Jeff Hancock had presented a draft NID petition for the Clint Avenue project with the Board of Aldermen packet last week.

The petition calls for two-thirds of the property owners’ signatures asking the city to create the NID to pay for the curb and guttering, according to Hancock.

According to the draft petition, the cost of the project would be approximately $19,000; 1,200 linear feet at $16 per foot.

The petition states that costs to the property owners “will be assessed on a linear foot basis to the adjoining property owner or owners based upon the property’s boundary adjacent to the proposed curb and gutter project.”

After the project is completed, there might be additional costs:
“This will not include any annual assessment of maintenance costs for the improvement in each year after the bonds issued for the original improvement are paid in full,” the petition stated.

Hancock stated that he and City Attorney Phil Morgan are working on exact procedures to present to the board at its Feb. 17 meeting.

“Subject to approval at your next board meeting and your determination to proceed on making a final determination on the project for future acceptance,” Hancock stated in a report to the board, “we would later schedule a meeting with the property owners and request that they circulate the petition and return the petition with two thirds of the property owners signatures agreeing to pay for the curb and guttering through a Neighborhood Improvement District.”

City officials have grappled with the problem of unfinished streets within the city limits for a number of years.

Residents living on these unfinished roads - including Clint Avenue, Roy Harmon Drive, Scotts Court and part of Poplar Street - have complained about poor asphalt conditions, dirt and gravel roads with water run-off gouging deep ruts and potholes.

“The roads are very bad,” one resident had said at the board’s Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. “You will never want to drive on these roads.” He added that ruts and potholes on the unpaved portions of the road get deeper and wider when it rains.

The Reporter had found huge washed-out furrows at the end of Scotts Court, washboarding on the unpaved section of Poplar Street and a significant drop-off between the unpaved Ray Harmon and the paved Cedar Avenue in September of 2013.

City officials have been sympathetic, but they have also been cautious in their response, stating that anything the city could do to alleviate the problem would take time.

Clint Avenue residents had spoken out about their street conditions at a May 12, 2012 board meeting but received cold comfort.

At that meeting, then-mayor Dennis North said the city could not repair the poorly paved street and could not legally compel the owner - John Williams - to take care of the problem.

All content is Copyright 2015 by Reporter Publishing, L.L.C. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited without written permission.