Cheyenne Council President: Potholes Are Not An Emergency
Cheyenne City Council President Rocky Case says that while potholes are certainly a problem in Cheyenne, they are not the kind of emergency situation that justifies bypassing city council approval for funding.
Case made the comments on Monday morning in reference to a recent decision by Mayor Marian Orr to bypass the city council and allocate $250,000 to fix potholes on city streets. Case said that normally the city council must sign off on expenditures of over $35,000 but that there is an exemption for emergency situations. He said he doesn't feel the potholes on Cheyenne streets right now meet that definition. Mayor Orr, on Friday, issued a pair of statements in defense of her decision:
'With both a wet spring and open positions in our street and alley division that we can’t fill - there is continuous work to be done. It’s a very tight job market right now. We have street repair work that must get done and a short season to do it. We’ve reached out the private sector to help us get the work done using funds that have been budgeted and allocated for street repairs.''
'This is authorization is absolutely within my duties as mayor. And it's not the first time we've used a contract like this perform necessary work. The council has approved the funds. The voters have approved the funds. We use $4.5M a year from 5th penny funds for road repair. This contract is well within that amount. And we have a very good plan in place including mapping of priority needs. By doing this work now we will be getting ahead of what would be an even worse pothole spring season situation next year.''