decorahnews.com series: "You Said It Your Way"--Streets

The 500 Decorah residents who completed community surveys are almost unanimous in their opinion that street maintenance should be a priority of city government.

95 percent of those answering the survey said it should be either a high priority or medium priority for city government to maintain and repair streets.

Unfortunately, that's where the agreement ends.  When it comes to which streets ought to be repaired first, there's no the same kind of agreement.  For instance, 49 percent of those answering the survey say repairing Locust Road should be only a medium priority.  Other survey respondents mention East Main Street or residential streets or just streets in general.

The city's Street Committee has been trying to figure out which street projects should be done first over the next five years.  Their list of possible projects includes not only Locust Road and East Main Street, but also College Drive north of Luther College.  So the survey results offer no clear-cut preference from the public about priorities--and also contain comments from numerous people that property taxes are already too high.

Wednesday our series will continue with a look at city departments.