Some grass grows between the cracks, but it's pretty good, he said.
“Why does this need to be replaced?”
When he got his assessment letter from the Missoula Public Works Department, he was taken aback. His came to $8,000. His curbs, completed a year ago, cost about $3,000. The largest assessments among the neighborhood's 94 homeowners were as much as $20,000.
“It's a big hit for people not making a lot of money,” Laber said.
When some of Laber's neighbors spoke out at a City Council committee meeting in April, a routine process became more complicated. The Public Works Committee halted the Hickory Street project and sent city employees scrambling to come up with new funding options.
“It's the cost,” said committee chair and Ward 5 Councilman Jack Reidy.
A City Council resolution in 1898 established the city's system to pay for curbs and sidewalks: Each homeowner pays for his or her own sidewalk and curb.
Over the decades, many of the basic operations of various city departments have changed, but the financing of sidewalks and curbs has remained essentially the same.
About $5 million in new curbs and sidewalks are built in Missoula every year, said city Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Bender.
Four out of five of those dollars come from assessments on new subdivisions, he said. Only $1 million a year comes from homeowners within established neighborhoods.
But many of Missoula's neighborhoods were subdivided and developed outside the city limits and never had a comprehensive curb-and-sidewalk system, he said. Subsequently, those neighborhoods have been annexed by the city.
Every year, the Public Works Department proposes a list of street, sidewalk and sewer projects. Every year, the City Council places its stamp of approval on the plans.
But the price of building materials has gone up sharply in recent years. The cost of sidewalk construction has doubled since 1996, according to a city analysis.
Until recently, the city sold bonds to spread those costs out over as many as 12 years. In some cases, low-income homeowners have been able to defer the costs entirely until the property changes hands - then the full amount plus interest comes due.
After the residents in the Hickory Street neighborhood balked, Public Works Director Steve King and city finance chief Brentt Ramharter worked up a plan to allow homeowners to spread the monthly payments out over more time, up to 20 years, and to defer any balance over an $8,000 total cost - or $76-a-month threshold - until the property changes hands.
The thresholds would not apply to combined assessments but to each one. For instance, if you had a $3,000 assessment last year to pay for curbs and another $7,000 assessment this year, the city would treat them separately.
The finance package has not yet been adopted by the City Council. It was discussed at Monday's City Council meeting and will come up again in committee next Wednesday. The City Council will probably vote on the new financing options and the Hickory Street project the same night.
Some residents in the neighborhood spoke in favor of sidewalk-and-curb projects in general on Wednesday.
Retiree Ursula Lehtola walks for exercise and wants smooth sidewalks, she said. She also expressed amazement at Missoula's ever-rising home values.
For Laber, the two issues are intertwined. It all adds up to more money going out the door every month. He worries about gentrification - the constant upward push on property values that's pricing the middle class out of Missoula.
Plus, it feels crappy, he said, to get what can seem like a rude, demanding letter from the city.
“It's that whole feeling that someone has to power to say, ‘You're going to pay $15,000,' and you have nothing to say about it,” Laber said.
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