First of all, forgive the poor spelling.

Now that the primary is over and you are now in a race to become a member of the Lincoln Park city council. Could you answer some of these questions:

1. What are your plans to fix the city roads?
The excuse that it is on "the list" is not cutting it!
2. I have seen more and more empty buildings, both residental and commercial what are your plans to bring new business to the city?
3. Rats, I understand the city does not want the liability for trapping and poisoning these vermon. The city needs to act before reports of children being bitten start coming in.
4. LPpride program, seems to be failing, how do you plan to revive the program so that it does what it was intended to do?
Not be the tool of neighbors who are squabbling with each other

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God only mad a few perfect heads the rest he put hair on!

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MINDVTR (09-14-05)

(1). I don't believe the roads problem will EVER be solved by local government. Trying to fool people using asphalt is a cheap shot at the tax payers. With 80 to 90 million dollars of repair work to be done and only about 2 million coming in each year, people have to realize that WHATEVER the city uses to repair your road in the near future, YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR ROAD ADDRESSED AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE TIME because they will not be able to come back in 10 years to fix your asphalt when they have not even touched another tax payers road! Without State and maybe even federal assistance we are doomed, and trying to fool people with a few extra blocks of temporary asphalt when you know you will never touch their road again, is plain wrong!

I have to go now but I will return to answer more of your questions.

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Rmc2017 (10-08-05)

Councilman Murphy: Will you be recommending people vote AGAINST the road millage in November?

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What are you proposing as a solution. Do you plan to appeal for state or federal funding for LP roads? I'd still like to know what your plans are for the revitalization of downtown LP. No previous council has ever done anything to spur growth in that area. You've been on previous councils...what are thoughts on why that revitalizaiton has not occurred. What are some of the reasons?

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So, the cost to repave the roads (with concrete) will cost about 80 or 90 million dollars, where is the funding for that going to come from?? If the millage does not pass, there will be zip for the roads, unless of course you save money elsewhere, cut employees? Cut public safety? Assess the homeowners for their share of the road?? Play the mega millions?
There doesn't need to be a cap on the millage, do you realize how many years it will take to generate 80 million dollars? years and years and years........plus every year the estimatated cost will rise higher and higher. So please answer me this Mr. Murphy, where will the money come from?

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Like all levels of government, LP has failed to establish savings to fix infra structure. Every level of government has been in the habit of paying from current income, never establishing any kind of realistic fiscal planning.

You know your roof shingles will need replacing, your walls painted, your appliances replaced and if you don't plan for this you are foolish.

Well our city, county and state officials have all known that our infra structure will need replacing and did not establish a fund to save money for this.

Where in our budget is the money being set aside for future repairs?

We do not make our governments be fiscally responsible and have allowed this since the beginning. The money for the roads today should have begun being set aside 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

We are all at fault in this. Governments are but a reflection of the people and American's habits have been fiscally poor on a personal level, living from pay check to paycheck, not having savings accounts.

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I have been saying this for the past year. Blacktoping is a bandaid. If you are not going to do something right, don't do it at all. My home and street is over 50 years old, the street is concrete and is still in pretty good shape. IF we are going to make an investment, lets do it in something that will last, not something that will need to be replaced in 7-10 years (maybe less!)

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If you know that the average life span of a concrete road is 15 years and you spent $2,000,000 this year to replace, someone needs to figure out what the $2MM is in 2020 dollars and start putting 1/15 of that into a fund to replace that road again in 15 years.

This is not brain surgury, it is common sense.

Is this part of our budget? No it is not.

I ask the question, why isn't it?

If they don't have the money today to save for future repairs, what will be the tax burden on our children?

Where is the $80,000,000 going to come from for the current road repair needs?

What about sewer repairs? How much do we need to repair what is needed now?

What about equipment replacement?

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.

At some point, someone needs to establish what needs to be done right now, how much it costs and when will it need to be fixed again.

How much money do we need annually to just keep the status quo?

By that I mean to repair what is needed and to save for what will be needed again.

This is extremely frightening to me. I worry about the future for my children and what quality of life they will have.

Today I see only a future of further decline of the quality of our infrastructure. This is so sad!

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Bailey was capped with asphalt 10 years ago. THe 600 block of Moran was fully resurfaced with concrete a year ago.

Drive down these two streets and tell me which is holding up better.

Even though Bailey is 9 years older than Moran, it is holding up much better.

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Congratulations Councilman Mario DiSanto. The Dean of the LP Council

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You are full of it! Any problem Moran has, is do to the company that installed it.

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Most municipal capital improvements such as water and sewer are handled by a municipal bond. I could only find a $6M bond listed for the school district.

Does anyone know what the outstanding city bonds are and when they are due? Does anyone know what the city's bond rating is?

No one pays for $80M in civic improvements out of spending cash or out of the budget. These are bond issue projects not pocket change

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I think Bailey has only been redone for 5 years at the most.

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A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.

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Ciccote from Fort to Marion is another example of asphalt capping. If that's a bandaid slap one on Montie. from Fort to Lejuene. It's not safe to drive on.

I still think someone or some people tried to throw a monkey -wrench into the first bid. I want to know if it was somebody at Hennesey or on the council or both that answered the questions bidders had on the first bid. I got the impression something was changed and items were added that caused additional expense that were not required for residential streets.

We have spent 10 years pouring concrete over collapsing sewers and ancient leaking water mains . Thank you Mario for stopping the . Hennesey pocketed $2.9 million from the last 5 year millage It won't happen again if the next one passes.

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If pro is the opposite of con? would CONgress be the oppositeof PROgress?

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