Elyria Council begins looking at 2021 streets list

It's the time of the year for City Council to start planning which residential streets will get redone this year. City Council's Utilities Committee started looking over its list of streets on Wednesday. There was no vote on which roads will be paved; the committee will meet again next week to vote. City Engineer John Schneider's department ranks streets that residents, City Council and the department recommends. He then puts together a list of which roads are in the worst shape. Council has $1.7 million from Issue 6 dollars to spend on the roads this year. That breaks down to about $242,000 for each of the six wards in Elyria. In Ward 1, roads like Concord Avenue from Clark Street to East Broad Street and Lexington Avenue from Taylor Street to Clark Street, topped the list. In Ward 2, Councilwoman Brenda Davis, D-2nd Ward, particularly requested that Apple Street be added to the list. Belmont Avenue from Furnace Street to Bell Avenue and High Street from Adams Street to Lorain Boulevard also were at the top of the list. Councilman Mark Jessie, D-3rd Ward, requested Kansas Avenue from Carroll Road to California Avenue be done, including the intersections. Councilman Kenny Oswald, D-4th Ward, is looking to use some dollars for his ward to do concrete patchwork on the roads that need it. Schneider said he would look into that work, and Oswald also looked at repaving Pasadena Avenue from Randall Road to Berkshire Road. Chestnut Street from Lake Avenue to Third Street topped the list for Ward 5. At the request of Councilwoman Diane Simmons, D-5th Ward, Schneider will also look into repaving Tannery Street. Fuller Road was also a request of Simmons, but Schneider said he's also eyeing that as a larger project to begin next year. He said that's likely to be a more expensive road to repave. Ward 6 is on track to potentially get all the roads on its list paved, including the Courtland Street and Demas Avenue and Courtland and Penfield Avenue intersection and Mussey Road from the railroad tracks to the bridge. Roads like Hawthorne Street from Poplar Street to Sycamore Street in Ward 7 are being researched for pricing. Utility committee members will make a final decision at its meeting next Wednesday. The final list will go to City Council. Contact Laina Yost at (440) 329-7121 or lyost@chroniclet.com.