Lincoln Park Mayor Thomas Karnes
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
LINCOLN PARK – Much-needed alley maintenance and the city’s 39 percent systemwide water loss, mundane but important topics, were the focus of Mayor Thomas Karnes’ report during the Sept. 20 City Council meeting.
The topics represent city issues which present challenges and will required multi-step approaches to address.
Karnes said much discussion in the past has focused on the city’s alleys.
“The Fort Street municipal alleys look pretty good,” he said. “There is some work that needs to be done in some of the residential ones I looked at.”
Karnes said he met with the police chief and the deputy chief to develop a process to look for situations in which residents and businesses have come over the fence from their side, and it is something for which action could be taken, and that part of the city ordinance could be enforced.
“Absent a memo to get the higher court to take a look at our ordinance that requires a resident to clean up half of that, there would be a need to get an answer, and there is no confirming exactly what that is going to be,” he said. “I think that we are going to be better off amending that ordinance to something that conforms to the law, and that is in the process.”
Karnes said they are working to get the debris removed from the alleys and to do the cleanup as soon as possible.
“We are currently assessing and checking all of the alleys,” he said. “I will say that if you have property that is adjacent to an alley, if you could help us out a little bit, clean up behind yours and maybe help with the alley, our goal is to make Lincoln Park a great city again.”
Karnes said the city is getting there, but a significant part of that is going to be driven by pride in one’s property and how it looks from behind.
“We are going to do our part with the cleanups, but I want everyone else to get involved in that, too,” he said.
In addition to focus on alleys, Karnes said he met with the city manager, the city engineer, the department of public services director and two water infrastructure specialists to try to begin to understand why the city is experiencing a 39 percent water loss, and to identify the causes.
“Most communities of our size have a 15 percent water loss,” he said. “There are various ways of attacking it, and we have established a check list that includes testing various meters throughout the city.
“There is a program with the state, to which they will use heat sensing from above to see where water is leaking out, and that would be no cost to us, but that is six months to a year out.”
Karnes said he is of the opinion that the city cannot wait that long to address the water loss issue.
“This is money literally going down the drain, and we are going to be having expenses, we are going to be raising water bills and such, and we are going to expect all of us to bear the brunt of that,” he said. “But if we are going to do it, we should pay for what we are using and not what we are throwing away.
“The focus is to get a handle on this and find out as soon as possible, and if it is defective meters, we will replace the meters, and if the water is going in the creek, then we need to find that out and stop it.”
Karnes said he will provide more information at an October council meeting.