The most vexing issue facing the City of Auburn, Mayor Nancy Backus said in her annual State of the City address Tuesday morning at Emerald Downs, is finding sustainable funding to repair and maintain its streets and arterials.

City officials and residents alike share the headaches and heartburns of deteriorating streets not to mention the occasional, pothole-induced, spilled cups of coffee.

Residents, Backus said, have made it clear that they are plum tired of hearing that the City doesn’t have the money to fix its streets..

Unfortunately, the mayor said, it doesn’t.

To put a fine point on her words, Backus began her comments, not from a lectern, but via video shot over a pothole on H Street Northeast, a street on which the City in 2014 effected $1 million worth of repairs. That is only a tiny fraction of the money it needs — in an environment where money is hard to come by — to bring the street system up to snuff.

Backus also tallied progress the City has made putting into practice some of the ideas she rode into office on, such as “breaking with the status quo” and making government more accessible to the people it serves.

Streets

Last year, the City spent $1 million to complete about a third of a mile of street improvements on H Street Northeast, including reconstruction of pavement, curbs, gutters and sidewalks, replacement of a deteriorated water line and sewer line and storm drainage improvements. Money that was extremely hard to come by, Backus said, given the drying up of state and federal resources on the heels of voter-approved initiatives over the last 15 years.

“It was a given, it was sustainable, and now 15 years later we all see the result of that revenue loss,” Backus said. “Oh, I was right there with you back then. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but our 216 miles of centerline paved roads have been deteriorating since.”

The major work the City needs to complete on Auburn’s high traffic corridors constitutes 30 miles of roadway, scattered among projects estimated to cost nearly $60 million dollars. Backus said the City would like to do more but it can’t because it really doesn’t have the dollars.

What the City and the region need, Backus said, is for lawmakers in Olympia to pass a transportation package, even though none of that money goes to cities for local road improvements.

“We need to continue to seek grant money to pay for our road projects – right now that is the majority of the funding we receive for our projects,” Backus said.

The most important thing Auburn needs to do, Backus added, is have a serious discussion about what kind of funding package “we can put together.”

“Yes, I said, ‘we.’ It’s going to take some work from me and our team to continue to prioritize our spending to allocate more funds to our roads and to continue to attract successful businesses to Auburn to expand our tax base. It’s going to take some work from you, our citizens, to help us expand our sales tax revenue by spending more of your money in Auburn. And I might as well say it now, it might take a new tax or fee to fund these projects,” Backus said.

“None of these things are easy, but all of these options need to be part of a discussion that we have together to find the most effective solution,” Backus said.

Progress

Backus turned to some of the changes effected under her watch.

“I … told you that I intended to disrupt the status quo of government. This is not to say that government and our way of doing business was wrong or bad. I was a part of it for 10 years before I became mayor. But the longer I was on the City Council, the more I thought that we could do better, be more efficient. After taking office, I suggested to the City Council that we examine how we do business,” Backus said.

One change was to do away with the old subcommittee system and move to a study session format, fostering better discussions, shorter times between consideration and voting, and ultimately getting the business of the City done with less bureaucracy.

“Less bureaucracy in government? If that isn’t disrupting the  status quo, I don’t know what is. As we move forward, we will continue to refine our processes because we know that the only constant is change, and we will either keep up or fall behind, and I’m not very interested in the latter for Auburn,” she said.

She noted that the City has also begun live streaming its meetings on its website.

“No longer is it necessary for us to expect people to attend our meetings in order to know what’s being worked on. We would love it if you did, but increasing accessibility is our primary goal. I don’t have a preference for how you get involved with our conversations, I just want to you to. So tune in on the Internet, join our online discussions, send us email. … Letters and phone calls are always welcome,” Backus said.

Police

Backus said the Auburn Police Department has continued to make changes how it protects residents. This summer the department revived its bike unit to patrol the downtown core and parks.

“We have about eight officers who are trained for conducting bike patrols. The effort is to expand our commitment to a safe and family-friendly city, and we are looking at ways to expand this. Last year we added nine commissioned and three non-commissioned staff to the department, and our City leadership agreed that our first budget priority in adding new staff this year will also be for law enforcement.

“We should all understand that our police officers respond to about 6,000 calls per month. They are busy, without a doubt. This is not to say that we don’t want you to call on them, though. If you need our officers, they will be there. Our department uses all resources available to them, we partner with other agencies and even use two K9s to fight crime in Auburn. Our police dogs are vital to our operations, and some come to us with some very specialized skills, like drug sniffing or apprehending suspects,” Backus said.