More than 150 days have passed since the city of Cortez heard about public safety issues around the new Montezuma-Cortez High School.
On Jan. 27, Cortez resident Gerald Vincent addressed city leaders, telling them that city roadways leading to the new high school lacked adequate sidewalks and proper streetlights. Funding to construct the new $33.7 million Montezuma-Cortez High School was secured in 2012. Construction started last year.
“We’ve spent tons of money building a new school, but the basic safety of our children is going unanswered,” Vincent told The Cortez Journal last week.
Earlier this month, city officials announced a $42,500 plan to install three streetlights on Sligo Street and four on Seventh Street, the only roadways to the new school. Officials said they were also planning to install a gravel pathway that connected existing sidewalks. Neither effort has been approved for funding.
“Staff has been working on estimates to pave the walkway, and plans to bring those costs plus the streetlight decision to City Council on July 14,” said City Manager Shane Hale.
Hale didn’t have an exact timeline for the public safety enhancements, saying the city would have to coordinate with Empire Electric to install the streetlights. Hale said that a gravel pathway on Seventh Street would be completed before the first day of classes on Aug. 25.
“If city council elects to concrete (the pathway) this year, the project would need to be competitively bid, so it’s not likely that it would be a concrete path by the first day of school,” Hale said.
In a June 9 memo, Cortez Public Works Director Phil Johnson reminded city officials that there were no existing electricity lines to power streetlights if installed. Empire Electric officials have agreed to install the light poles and lights, providing the city excavate roughly 2,500 cubic feet of trench for two transformers and the poles.
While the announced plans would be an improvement, Vincent, a retired risk-management professional, said the two thoroughfares would remain dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, especially at night.
Adding that he was disappointed by the city’s lack of planning, Vincent said he wasn’t surprised considering that neither city nor school officials ever conducted a traffic survey to determine how the area would be accessed once the new school opens this fall.
“No one knows how many students will be riding a bus, dropped off by parents, drive their own car, ride a bike or walk to school,” said Vincent.
In 2014, the city spent more than $250,000 on an LED lighting project, which included retrofitting 60 city-owned streetlights. When announced, officials said the upgrades would save the city more than $77,000 annually, but the project didn’t include installing streetlights near the high school.
Highlighting the city’s failure to budget for new streetlights in its current budget, Vincent pointed out that the city did approve several discretionary spending projects in 2015, including $800,000 to expand the industrial park, $760,000 for digital water meters, $50,000 for new golf course lawn mowers and even $40,000 to install new carpet at the police department.
“There’s no funding for public safety,” said Vincent. “You have to ask the question, Don’t they care?”
Council member Bob Archibeque has also publicly voiced concerns, predicting that Seventh Street would be a high-pedestrian traffic area once the new school opens.
“I’m thinking about the safety of those kids,” Archibeque told his city colleagues this month.
Asked if the city dropped the ball regarding the public safety issues, both Hale and Mayor Karen Sheek declined to comment. Hale did say that yellow school zone signs had been erected.
“Time is running out,” said Vincent, “and the big question remains, – How are our kids going to get to school safely?”
tbaker@cortezjournal.com