Published: June 18, 2009 01:08 pm      

Gateways, gravel and stone piles

Beautifying Lebanon’s entry points — also known as “gateways” — is an excellent idea.

It’s the timing that’s awful.

Before spending more money on gateway improvements, city officials should first improve the city’s inner vistas.

Each year, city officials announce an effort to “clean up the city.” Mostly, they do a good job — junk vehicles are towed away, weedy lots are cleared, piles of trash are hauled to dumps.

But unsightly areas remain. Some of them have been overlooked — ignored is such a strong word — by city officials for years.

Across the street from my home, for example, is a home with a gravel parking lot.

This disturbs me for several reasons, not the least being that I live in a residential area. The gravel was laid a few years ago — replacing a sugar maple and a lawn — so the owner would have ample off-street parking for several vehicles, he told me.

Ample is fine; ample is admirable. But I assumed that all of the vehicles would be driven.

On the gravel is a silver Dodge pickup truck that has not been moved in about three years. The truck runs — I heard it — so technically it doesn’t violate Lebanon’s junk vehicle ordinance. There’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law — and the spirit in this case is as pale as the paint on the truck.

Not being a shy person, I complained to the city. And complained. And ... but I repeat myself.

It was only after the mayor’s party affiliation changed from Democrat to Republican that corrections were made.

Nor am I the only city resident who has an unpleasant view out the front door. And that’s my point: Before the city spends more money on gateways, it should rejuvenate that which should have been rejuvenated years ago.

Improving Lebanon’s entrances will eventually return economic benefits to the community — but this isn’t the time to spend the money. If the project can be funded by state and federal grants, then I’m all for it. That is a big part of the plan, as is combining the gateway project with a rebuild of the Indiana 39 bridge already on the Indiana Department of Transportation drawing board.

Police, fire and street departments will be doing well to maintain their current level of service next year, if state revenues are as short as predicted. How short? Yard gnomes are taller.

If state or federal grants can be found to pay for gateway improvements, my objections disappear. It is, after all, our money; Indiana has a rotten rate of return for taxes sluiced to the great swamp on the Potomac.

Not far from the Indianapolis Avenue exit from Interstate 65 is a lot on which the Boone County Highway Department stores gravel and stone. It’s called “the rock pile,” by county highway employees.

Moving the rocks would be a fast and relatively easy way to improve the Indianapolis Avenue gateway.

Problem is, it can’t be done for cheap.

Last August, the Boone County Council narrowly rejected spending $20,000 for a federally-required environmental impact study of the rock pile.

Lebanon officials had proposed clearing the lot and moving the material as one of several methods to make the Indianapolis Avenue gateway more attractive.

But, before the pile could be moved, to a seven- to 15-acre site on highway department grounds, an environmental impact study was required. Although the Boone County Commissioners had a contract with a consulting firm to do the study, the county council controls spending. The council voted 4-2 to fund the contract, one vote short of the super-majority necessary.

No money, no study.

I’m not suggesting neither the county nor the city violate federal environmental laws; I’m suggesting it might be difficult to move several thousand tons of assorted-size rock without someone noticing.

Once, of course, the county council finds an extra $20,000 it won’t be needing.

— Rod Rose is the assistant managing editor of The Lebanon Reporter. He may be reached at rod.rose@reporter.net.