COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The City of Columbus hosted the first of three Capital Budget proposal public hearings Tuesday night, spotlighting Mayor Andrew Ginther’s $2.9 billion Capital Budget proposal, the largest in city history.
Finance Director for the City of Columbus Chris Long was one of five people on the panel taking questions from constituents at New Birth Christian Ministries.
“It’s important that we get community advocacy feedback and input to ensure that the mayor’s capital budget, this capital budget, and years ahead, are reflective of the community’s priorities,” Long said.
He started by explaining the difference between the city’s operating and capital budgets.
“Operating budget pays for personnel, supplies, and services,” Long said. “Really, the daily operations and running of the city. Basic city services. Capital is the infrastructure. It’s the places where we do business on behalf of the citizens. So, we’re thinking streets, roadways, rec centers, public safety locations like police substations, fire stations. This year’s capital budget is a little bit over $2 billion. Last year was about $1.3 billion, so it’s growing, you know, substantially and it’s a mix rate of income tax, supported dollars, and it’s also supported by enterprise, which would be our public utilities, ratepayer dollars.”
The capital budget focuses on the physical infrastructure of the city, and one of the major areas the crowd on Tuesday wanted to address was the road conditions.
“It’s horrible, there’s a lot of potholes, a lot of, a lot of structure, building have been built between High Street and Cleveland Avenue, but then as you get past Cleveland Avenue all the way down to Cassidy, nothing has happened,” North Central Area Commission member Melodie Cook said about Fifth Avenue from Dublin Road to Hamilton Road.
Bicycle safety and road safety are other points of contention that came up multiple times.
Dr. Robert Bennett, a southside resident, addressed the panel several times.
“I bike, largely, everywhere that I go, I bike and I have found that the drivers in Columbus are not courteous to bicyclists, so, at least, not to me,” he said. “Much of what is considered bike infrastructure in Columbus are shared ways, and bicycle boulevards instead of standalone protected bike lanes. If I had a standalone protected bike lane that was bidirectional, I would feel so much safer because I would be able to interact with other bicyclists. It would be a catastrophe for anyone to be injured or killed on their bike in Columbus, and the more that we can avoid that catastrophe, the better off we’re going to be as a community, and that’s the risk that we’re running.”
He advocated for education and dedicated bike lanes.
“There’s this feeling that bicycles are kind of in the way,” Bennett said. “Paying attention not just for bicyclists and people on motorcycles, but also for pedestrians and kids. So, paying attention, getting over, slowing down.”
The capital budget covers many other areas as well.
“Number one, the mayor’s ongoing commitment to affordable housing, right, so this capital budget has a $50 million set aside for affordable housing investment,” Long said. “There’s also a new Easton police substation, $14 million is set aside for that. There’s additional resurfacing dollars in this budget. There’s a new Marion Franklin Road outpost for our division of public service refugees, and then just ongoing recreation parks, investments.”
Cook asked the commission about improvements for her part of Columbus on the North Central side, because the older population of the area is struggling to find actually affordable housing.
“We have so much that’s being built up downtown and getting a new soccer stadium, but there’s nothing coming to make sure we have shelter for our people in the city of Columbus,” Cook said. “People are house-poor, so they have to choose between food, transportation or home, and a lot of people are living out of their cars or just on the street or underneath the paths. Nobody could afford $1,600 a month. There’s no availability, housing that’s in our area, for our community, and there’s going to be new housing going up on Sunbury Road, but it’s still out of the reach for our community, for people that need housing.”
The City of Columbus will hold two more Capital Budget Town Hall meetings this week – Wednesday from 10-11:30 a.m. at Columbus COED, 1890 East Main Street; and Thursday from 5:30-7 p.m. at Woodward Park Community Center, 5147 Karl Road.