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Pleasant grove residents fed up over bad roads; launches initiative

Posted at 6:55 PM, Mar 13, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-13 20:55:28-04

PLEASANT GROVE – Pleasant Grove residents are asking the city to transfer $2.625 million from the general fund to a special fund for the repair of the city's roads.

"There's potholes, there's waves in the road. Your suspension is going to be broken,” said Jacob Zonts, Pleasant Grove resident. “As the roads deteriorate people will look at that road and say, I don't know if I want to live on that road.”

Zonts says city leaders have broken promises about budgeting money to fix roads, that’s why he and other concerned citizens are launching the Fund Roads First Initiative.

If the initiative goes through, the city would have $2 million more to spend on road repairs and maintenance.

“We've done many surveys and every single one, citizens are saying the roads need to be first,” said Zonts.

Michael Daniels, mayor of Pleasant Grove, admits the roads in his city are in poor condition.

“I don't think it's any different than any other city in the state," said Daniels.

He says the city council has been looking at ways to generate $3.8 million to fund 110 miles of road in the growing city. With citizens taking this lawful route to tackle the issue themselves, Daniels says the city would be forced to scale back, eliminate or add fees to existing services.

“The road initiative that's been created is rather a blunt instrument for addressing this kind of an issue. It would wipe out a considerable amount of money out of the general fund, somewhere around 21% that would be pre-allocated to the roads,” said Daniels.

The group must collect 1636 signatures by April 14th and then it will be put on the November ballot.

“We aren't requiring them to cut anything, all we're saying is we need to re-prioritize and make roads our first funding,” said Zonts.

The Pleasant Grove City Council is expected to meet on March 21st to go over the specific programs that will be impacted if the initiative passes.