TERRE HAUTE — We walk on them every day and take them for granted.
But when they are broken, cracked and dangerous, sidewalks can turn into political dynamite.
At a recent neighborhood meeting, a woman asked Mayor Duke Bennett why some Terre Haute sidewalks are repaired while others are not. Does it have anything to do with the property value of the homes nearby? she asked.
“Here’s how it works,” Bennett told the woman. “I don’t know what past mayors have done. I’m sure, I’m certain, that roads were paved and sidewalks were paved for political reasons. Terre Haute’s not unique. [But] we don’t do that.”
That comment, made at a Ryves Hall neighborhood summit on March 3 and published in the Tribune-Star the next day, struck a nerve with former Mayor Kevin Burke, whom Bennett defeated in the 2007 mayoral election and who continues to battle for City Hall in court.
“He took a shot at me,” Burke said in a telephone interview the day Bennett’s comments appeared in the newspaper. “He’s accused me of something.”
Although Bennett did not name Burke’s administration as one that paved roads or repaired sidewalks for political reasons, Burke said Bennett was inviting his audience to make that assumption. “I feel it’s an attack on my administration.”
Bennett, when asked later about his comments, said he was not referring to Burke or any other mayor specifically, but thinks it’s likely Terre Haute sidewalks in the past were repaired for political reasons.
“I’ve heard that for years,” Bennett said. “I’m sure over the years things like that have been done.”
Burke said Bennett is now backpedaling on his original comment. “He said he was certain. If you’re certain, prove it,” the former mayor said.
All this gives some idea of how politically explosive sidewalks can be. Of all the complaints reaching the mayor’s office, sidewalks rank second only to complaints about trash, Bennett said.
The city engineering department is charged with repairing Terre Haute’s nearly 700 miles of sidewalks, and last year, the city spent $920,000 doing just that.
When citizens complain about a sidewalk, George Decker, project manager in the engineering department, inspects the sidewalk, photographs it and gives it a rating on a 1-to-10 scale. The worst sidewalks are rated a 1. All other factors being equal, the No. 1 sidewalks should be near the front of the line to be repaired each year.
But not all factors are always equal. Engineering officials said some sidewalks can be moved up in their rating if they are near a school or business with high levels of foot traffic or if they are close to another sidewalk that’s already being repaired. Others can be moved up if wheelchair accessibility is a factor or if a business agrees to pay part of the repair cost.
Still other very damaged sidewalks may not be repaired at all if residents object to a tree being taken down in the process. Most sidewalk damage is caused by tree roots, engineering officials said.
The rules, in short, are “not so hard and fast,” said Chuck Ennis, city engineer.
So far in 2009, the engineering department has received around a dozen sidewalk complaints, Decker said, adding that the complaints usually start arriving in greater numbers when repair work actually begins and neighbors wonder why their sidewalks aren’t being repaired.
If “politics” plays a role in sidewalk repair, it takes place behind the scenes. The engineer’s office has been using its rating system for more than a decade. However, not too many years ago, members of the City Council were informally budgeted $10,000 each to prioritize sidewalk repairs in their districts, said Brian F. Conley, who served as a member of the council from 1988 to 1995.
“We asked the mayor to do that,” Conley said. “That’s how we got sidewalks around Collett Park.” Conley’s district included the park, and he used all of his sidewalk funds there, he said.
In addition to objecting to Bennett’s comments made at Ryves Hall, Burke said he also is suspicious about sidewalk repairs that took place last spring near property owned by Bennett on South Seventh Street.
“It doesn’t pass the smell test,” Burke said of sidewalk repairs at Seventh and Helen streets, the location of a hair salon operated by Bennett’s wife, Pam. Burke said Bennett’s sidewalk should not have been rated a “1” by the engineering department. Based on a photograph of the walk provided by engineering, the sidewalk should have been rated much higher, he said.
“I can show him worse sidewalks in front of property I own,” Burke said.
Bennett, however, said the photo taken by engineering does not show the worst section of that sidewalk. The worst was closer to South Seventh Street and included holes several inches deep, Bennett said. Bennett provided photos of this section of sidewalk, taken in 2007, to the Tribune-Star in response to the questions raised. The sidewalk “was clearly a ‘1,’” the mayor said.
In addition to questioning the ranking of the sidewalk, Burke also thinks it is odd that Bennett’s sidewalk was repaired shortly after Bennett took office last year and that the Bennett sidewalk was on the first work order for the year.
However, City Engineer Ennis said there were dozens of sidewalk projects on work order No. 1. In fact, there were only two sidewalk work orders for the entire year, each containing dozens of sidewalk jobs and the walk at Pam Bennett’s hairdressing shop was about the 10th job on work order No. 1, he said.
Scott Barber, director of asset management for the City of Terre Haute, said a photo of Bennett’s sidewalk came across his desk before the repair work began last spring and before he knew who owned the property on that corner. It raised no red flags in his mind, he said. “It did rate pretty bad.”
Burke notes that Pam Bennett called engineering in January 2008 to complain about her sidewalk, just weeks after her husband took office. He believes that phone call got someone to move her sidewalk to the top of the repair list, he said.
“I’m willing to say for the record – that rating was changed to accommodate [Bennett],” Burke said, adding that he “wasn’t there” so he can’t say exactly how the change came about, but he believes the mayor’s influence got the job done.
“He didn’t have to say … change the rating and go fix my sidewalk to get it done,” Burke said.
But Decker said he had noticed the sidewalk at Seventh and Helen for a long time and already had it scheduled for repair when Pam Bennett called to complain. Someone else – not Duke or Pam Bennett – had called some time earlier, he said. Duke Bennett never contacted him about the sidewalk, he said.
“It [had] always bugged me,” Decker said of the section of Bennett sidewalk. “It was the worst sidewalk on a side street off of South Seventh.”
Bennett, meanwhile, said his wife had called about her sidewalk in years prior to her 2008 call. Customers of Pam Bennett’s may have also called to complain, he said. Bennett noted that sidewalks on the other three corners of Seventh and Helen were replaced in the past couple of years while his wife’s corner was not.
The sidewalk at his wife’s business was “in horrible shape,” Bennett said. “I didn’t tell anybody to do anything,” he said, adding that Burke can make that accusation, “but that doesn’t make it true.”
Terre Haute’s budget for sidewalk repairs grew dramatically after the city passed an income tax, Ennis said. In 1995, the city’s budget for sidewalk repair was $100,000. It rose to $175,000 for 1999 and hit $183,000 in 2001.
In 2002, however, spending on sidewalks jumped to $359,000 and reached $1.2-million in 2007, the last year Burke was in office. In all, the city spent just less than $5 million on sidewalks from 2003 to 2008.
Part of the challenge of sidewalk repair is meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, Ennis noted. If a sidewalk has more than a half-inch step, it is out of ADA compliance, he said.
“You’re never going to be in compliance,” Ennis said, adding that the city can avoid being sued under the ADA as long as it has a program in place to repair the sidewalks.
Still, the work of repairing sidewalks is never done, Ennis said. Despite the large increase in spending on sidewalks in the past 10 years, there are still more broken and damaged sidewalks than the city can get to. “We could spend 10 times as much and still not get it all done,” Ennis said. “We’re going to be hearing about [sidewalks] forever.”
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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