Council expected to discuss changes to street repair list

the first time since news broke that some city streets were getting paved even though they weren’t as bad as others… city council is going to discuss the issue in a public meeting. abc-seven’s maria garcia joins us live with new information. maria? remember – the city’s process or lack or process – for choosing which streets got paved has been raising eyebrows. and if you’re watching and thinking: what’s the big deal about street repaving? well – it’s about more than that. it’s about government transparency. remember in 2012 the city approved borrowing 218 million dollars for street improvements. city council voted on which streets would get repaved based on extensive studies that determined which streets need it most. recently – city rep larry romero has come under the microscope after some streets in his district that were not on the list – got repaved. since then – the new head of the city’s engineering department – now called capital improvements – stopped all repaving to evaluate how that happened. now – city rep. claudia ordaz is concerned that some streets on the list – that were promised to voters – may not get repaved because the city spent the money elsewhere. maria: so there’s some streets that were approved in 2012 that it appears will not be repaved or resurfaced. ordaz: yes there were some streets that were removed. and we need to know which streets those were and which streets were added in and why. and a price tag and if there is data that shows these streets really do need work as opposed to somebody else’s. maria: so you still dont’ know which streets were removed? right. and that’s what you’re going to hear tomorrow? yest and that’s concerning for taxpayers who say you promised me something in 2012 and now those could not get done unless you take out more debt? right and so there’s a lot of questions that will be answered tomorrow. ” also on the agenda tomorrow: street lighting. according to ordaz, more than one million dollars was spent on street lighting in city rep. michiel noe’s district. she’s concerned that money was supposed to be distributed city wide, not just in one district. i’ll be at tomorrow’s meeting tweeting developments as they happen.