AUGUSTA — Augusta voters are to decide Tuesday on a proposal to borrow $4.5 million to buy a new fire truck, make pedestrian safety improvements, repair the now-closed upper deck of the city’s parking garage and repave or rebuild several city streets.
The single-item referendum would provide the money for capital improvement projects planned for Augusta, some within the coming year, such as buying the fire engine for $625,000, while also setting aside funding for longer-term projects, such as $200,000 this year and another $200,000 in each of the next two years to rebuild the city’s only public tennis courts in the near future.
City Manager Susan Robertson said polls are scheduled to be open in each of the city’s four voting wards from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
“I encourage everyone to get out and vote,” Robertson said.
Chief Dave Groder of the Augusta Fire Department said the new fire truck would replace Engine 4, a 1994 model.
The bond includes $750,000 for a project that would eventually pay for repairs to the city’s parking garage off Dickman Street, just above downtown Water Street, to allow the upper deck of the garage, which has been closed for a couple of years due to deterioration, to reopen for use.
Development Director Matt Nazar said those funds would be supplemented with $100,000 already set aside for the work. And the city’s five-year, $28.7 million capital improvement plan includes $30,000 a year, in fiscal years 2024 to 2026, for repairs to the parking garage.
Over its five years, that plan includes more than $2 million in work on sidewalks, crosswalks and other projects related to pedestrian safety, including extending sidewalks on Civic Center Drive and crosswalk improvements on Water Street.
The plan also includes $35,000 this year and $135,000 in fiscal 2023 to engineer a proposed new sidewalk on a section of Cony Road, in the area where three people, including a 1-year-old girl, were killed last May while walking along the roadside, where there is no sidewalk.
Officials said projects in the first year of the plan are firm, but projects five years out are only projected. Funding priorities could change before those are addressed.
The capital improvement plan does not include funds that are to be borrowed to build a new police station, for which voters last year approved borrowing $20.5 million.
Another $200,000 of the proposed bond proposal would go to replacing the Dr. Melendy Tennis Courts, six courts near the Buker Community Center that are Augusta’s only remaining outdoor courts. The spending is part of $600,000 expected to go toward court repairs over three years.
The tennis courts, which have cracks, including some with weeds and wildflowers growing from them, are in such poor shape Cony High School has not been able to host tennis matches at the site.
Street projects to be funded by the bond include $670,000 to rebuild Cushnoc Drive; $475,000 as the city’s 50% share to reconstruct Bog Road; $430,000 to rebuild Highland Avenue; and $300,000 to repave other city streets.
Interest on the proposed bonds over their estimated 20 years would total about $830,000, bringing the estimated cost to about $5.3 million, according to the referendum question.
The city’s polling places are Ward 1, Buker Community Center, 22 Armory St.; Ward 2, Augusta City Center, 16 Cony St.; Ward 3, Augusta Civic Center, 76 Community Drive; and Ward 4, Cony High School, 60 Pierce Drive.
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