St. Paul City Council confronts mayor over 'deteriorating' streets

A veto-proof majority of the St. Paul City Council is pushing Mayor Chris Coleman to pump more money into street repair.

Six of seven council members have have signed onto a plan to borrow more than $20 million dollars to address the problem. That money would allow the city to reconstruct about 10 miles of major arterial streets.

Council President Kathy Lantry says the proposal stands in contrast to the mayor's current approach, which has been to repave rather than fully rebuild many main thoroughfares.

Lantry says she's never had more complaints from residents than she has this year.

"We can't continue to say, 'Oh, it was a really bad winter.' The underlying road bed is deteriorating on these streets. So the band-aid approach no longer works. You have to reconstruct the street. We need a big infusion to really jump-start the infrastructure that we've neglected for too long."

Coleman's communications director Tonya Tennessen said in a statement the council's proposal fails to address the short-term need to patch the streets, and won't provide enough money to rebuild all the streets that need it.

"In fact, our Public Works Department estimates that it will cost $20 million a year every year for the next 10 years to reconstruct the arterial streets throughout the city," Tennessen said.

The council proposal represents an unusual confrontation between the St. Paul City Council and its mayor. St. Paul has a strong-mayor system of government, and council members generally negotiate with Coleman privately, rather than airing their differences in public.

The only council member who has not signed on to the accelerated street construction plan is Dave Thune.