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2019/07/30 - Mayor's Column: Efficiency and Effectiveness

“An Open Door to O’Fallon”
A Weekly Note from O’Fallon Mayor Herb Roach

In the City of O’Fallon, we take a strategic approach to city government. Peter Drucker has said, “efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” We take this quote very literal in how we operate.

At the Committee of the Whole meeting on July 29th, we presented the results of the City Council’s priorities. The top priorities of the current City Council are:

  1. Public Safety
  2. Economic Development
  3. Stormwater
  4. Streets
  5. Wastewater (Sewers)

City Staff will use these priorities when creating the Capital Improvements Plan and budget over the next year.

Another example of how we prioritize and attempt to maximize our efficiency is the annual pavement management program. The pavement management program is a multi-year initiative focused on improving O’Fallon’s streets. Maintaining the condition of O’Fallon’s streets is very important. In fact, its one of the City Council’s top five priorities.

Streets are also very expensive! This current fiscal year includes $1.7 million for the Pavement Management Program.

Prior to the launch of this program, we had every street in O’Fallon evaluated and provided a score based on condition. If you would like to view the up-to-date scores, please go to: https://www.ofallon.org/sites/g/files/vyhlif1031/f/uploads/street_pavement_ratings051619.pdf

From this score we can strategically plan each year’s pavement program based on the following factors:

  • Condition of roadway.
  • Volume of traffic.
  • Type of traffic (truck traffic, car traffic, etc.).
  • Other infrastructure projects in the immediate area.

While still expensive, it is much cheaper to repave roads before they get in too bad of a condition. If a roadway gets beyond repair, it must be reconstructed, which increases the cost and therefore reduces the total amount of roadways we can address in a given year.

We have a lot of roads that we are going to completely or partially repaved this year. Those are:

  • Brookside, Creekview, Crestview, Homestead, West Washington.
  • East Jefferson, Estate, Howard, and Lee.
  • Smiley.
  • Amhurst, Dartmouth, Harvard, Wellesley, Westminister, Whitehall, Vanderbilt, Yale.
  • Chiswick, Coachlight, Thornbury, Victoria.
  • Acer, Bentwater, Kings Ridge, Saddlewood, Wind Rose. 

Updates on this construction project and others can be found at https://www.ofallon.org/public-works-department/pages/construction-updates. 

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open!