JOHN PERKINS
More than a week since the Presidents’ Day freeze and not all of us in Shreveport have water. As of this writing, west Shreveport still has significant water outages, and there are many with water line breaks on private property. Shreveport DOWAS crews have worked around the clock since being called in on their Presidents’ Day holiday. The conditions were harsh, but they persisted in restoring water to citizens over a 123-square-mile area. That is a lot of miles of pipes underground.
Underground Infrastructure costs eight to 10 times what the streets above cost. So, if we cannot afford to keep up all our streets, how can we afford to keep up all our pipes underground? We have borrowed half a billion dollars to replace our sewer pipes, and it looks like we will need at least another half-billion-dollar bond issue. How can we afford to spend money to prepare our water system for another once-in-100-years winter freeze?
We know that next year a Record of Decision on the billion-dollar I-49 Inner-City Connector route, either through Allendale or along the Loop, is coming. At a billion dollars and at least 20 years to complete, we know we can expect to be on the hook for at least 13% local match money ($130 million) over at least 20 years.
Where will we find money to raze the old Captains’ Stadium at the Fairgrounds? (Where will all those bats go?) Why can’t we afford to air-condition the police department instead of relying on temporary equipment? Our T. L. James Water Purification Plant went online the same year that my Dad was born, 1930. It is still working, but it is a sign of how long these sorts of cans have been kicked down the road by previous administrations and now those cans have landed in the laps of our current administration and council.
Local city planner and architect Kim Mitchell says Shreveport was probably at peak efficiency as a city in the late 1950s. In his expert opinion, we were the proper size inland area for our population to be able to tax ourselves enough to pay for the basic city services that we had promised ourselves. I was born in the late ‘50s, so I don’t remember what that was like. I do remember the 1980s here, and at that time we were roughly the same population that we are now, but only 82 square miles to keep repaired and functioning. The city was more manageable at that density ratio.
This year we need to play an adult version of the children’s game “Would You Rather,” the game played on long car trips and waits. Would you rather lick pavement or a dirty trash can lid? In this case, would we rather have the federal government help us build a four-mile segment of I-49 or rebuild our local infrastructure that is failing? What would you rather do? PerkWrites@gmail.com.
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE February 26 ISSUE OF FOCUS SB - THE INQUISITOR.