Streets or Tennis Courts?

Mission Viejo residents’ debate about spending priorities continues on the blogs. The Mission Viejo Dispatch published Allan Pilger’s Feb. 27 letter about the city’s deteriorating streets. Read his post at http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=15137 . Dispatch readers may have been surprised to see suggestions from city hall saying residents are responsible for reporting streets in need of repair. A commissioner went a step further, indicating poor street conditions are ongoing because no resident has reported locations.

The discussion was renewed on a county blog, OrangeJuiceBlog.com, when Larry Gilbert posted an article about the city’s Capital Improvement Project to rebuild and expand the city-owned semi-private tennis club at Marguerite Parkway and Casta Drive. Read Gilbert’s post at http://orangejuiceblog.com/2010/03/should-mission-viejo-taxpayers-subsidize-outside-team-tennis/ . Several residents’ comments again called for repairing streets instead of spending $4 million on a tennis facility.

Does the city have so little money that residents can’t have decent roads as well as new facilities? Throughout the campaign to recall ex-councilman Lance MacLean, city hall insisted the city is in excellent financial shape with “discretionary” reserves exceeding $30 million. For those who describe community watchdogs as tightwads, here’s a surprise statement: the city should now go hog wild and spend some of its $30 million bringing streets and slopes up to standards.

Blogs have helped to raise residents’ awareness that many Mission Viejo streets need resurfacing. Streets need more than Band-Aids, patchwork or pouring tar into gaping cracks. Ignoring the damage becomes more costly in the long run.

From one of Larry’s OrangeJuiceBlog posts last week, “After months of local watchdog pressure, the city of Mission Viejo has ratchet’d up our street maintenance, including Olympiad Road a few hundred feet from our home today. The big issue for me is the cost of delayed repairs which might end up costing you seven times the cost of a periodic slurry seal.”

Here’s city hall’s phone number to report the need for street repairs: (949) 470-8405.