Daytime on the Dave Clark Path: Lights should encourage evening use too.
If everything goes according to plan, Albany’s Dave Clark Path will have new lighting starting next spring — at the cost of about $352,800 — and people using the place after dark will be able to see where they’re going. And if the police are called, officers will have a better view of what’s going on.
The advisory board of the city’s downtown urban renewal district approved the expenditure Wednesday. The total includes a $298,000 construction contract plus a 10 percent construction contingency and $25,000 in city engineering expenses. Four companies bid for the project. The low bidder, at $298,008, is Crawford Electric of Stayton.
Awarding the contract is up to the city council, and it will be asked to do so on Jan. 13.
Lighting the riverfront path has been a goal of the parks department and the city police, among others. “The improved lighting will make the riverfront more attractive to recreational use and make enforcement much easier,” a staff memo to the city council says.
The path runs along the riverfront from Monteith Riverpark to where it feeds into Front street at its eastern end. Most of the path has no lights. And the lighting in the park is dim and, according to the staff, hard to maintain because of its age.
Chris Cerklewski, the city engineer in charge of the project, says the new lights will be on timers. The CARA board had approved the project back in March, and now that the bids are in, the board has affirmed its support. (hh)
Given these lights are public improvements on public land….
and given CARA will use tax increment financing to pay the bond debt that generated the cash for this project…
CARA must magically assume that this project will trigger at least a $352K gain in property tax revenues within the whole CARA district.
Does the CARA advisory board understand how delusional this makes them appear?
More accurately, CARA must assume that this project will MAGICALLY trigger at least a $352K gain in property tax revenues within the whole CARA district.
I especially look forward to how councilors (Ray K?), the Mayor, the City Manager, and Kate will spin this ‘investment.’
Chris will do a great job!
One point as to any police action along the path would be to have “markers” along the way & not just hope the caller knows what intersection they are near. With a marker the caller could refer to it, hopefully the dispatcher would have a list & could direct the police to a more exact location rather than…”the caller is somewhere along the path…” type dispatch. A thought would be to have the marker attached to the light pole so they could be useful day or night…JE
If Chris is a City employee and this is within City Limits, why is there a $25,000 charge. I guess the City even charges itself even when the apparent design is already done.