ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
In the coming year, city residents are likely to see new sidewalks and curbing, some spruced-up parks and new snow removal equipment on Roanoke streets, the city administration told City Council on Monday.
Those items and others will be recommended to council in coming months as the city spends a $3.4 million surplus it had left over at the end of fiscal 1996, which ended June30.
About $1.28 million of the total will be spent on projects that will directly benefit neighborhoods, Budget Administrator Diane Akers told council.
Another $1 million will be spent on replacing city vehicles, including police cars and one ladder truck for the fire department.
Council wasn't asked to approve the expenditures on Monday; that will come later. The briefing was the administration's chance to outline plans for spending the surplus.
"I can see that a lot of what's in this program is directly related to requests from neighborhoods," City Councilman William White said.
The future expenditures include:
* An additional $100,000 for curbing and sidewalks on top of $200,000 the city already budgeted for curb and sidewalk replacement.
* A $50,000 program that will pay half the costs for curbing and sidewalk requests that fall low on the city's priority lists. Citizens requesting the work would have to agree to pay the other half of the costs.
* $288,000 for improvements in a variety of neighborhood parks. Those improvements include $50,000 for new playground equipment for Sunrise and Perry parks; $70,000 for new restrooms at Eureka and Lakewood parks; $25,000 for new fencing and backstops at eight parks spread across the city; $51,000 for new curbing at Eureka Park, Buena Vista Recreation Center and in Highland Park; $15,000 for a rebuilt shelter at Horton Park; $30,000 for upgraded sports lighting systems in city parks; $32,500 for repaving basketball and tennis courts; and $14,500 worth of landscaping in Strauss Park next to a new sound barrier being erected for the Peters Creek Road extension.
* $30,000 for tables, benches, trash cans, bleachers and soccer goals at athletic fields.
* $199,3000 for a new roof on the city's Main Library on Jefferson Street.
* $60,000 to paint and repair the Mill Mountain Star.
* $50,000 to paint the radio tower on the mountain.
* $325,000 for the city's annual street paving program.
* $135,000 for snow removal equipment, including salt spreaders, snowplow blades and "pre-wetting systems" that will help prevent snow from sticking to streets.
The city also intends to spend $20,000 on Mill Mountain Zoo renovations; $50,000 on a donation for the D-Day Memorial in Bedford; and $85,000 on an update of a Parks and Recreation master plan last updated in 1982.
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