Sixty-one residents of south New Ulm petitioned the City Council Tuesday to put temporary blacktop on the Payne Street Hill near 12th S.

The petition was not the usual type, signed by abutting property owners. It was rather signed almost entirely by people who live south of there and use Payne from 12th to 16th S. to get to town.

“In its present condition,” the petition stated, “The Payne Street Hill is both dangerous and damaging to the vehicular traffic.

“GRADING THE street is of very little benefit; within a day or two the ruts and holes reappear. We believe that installation of a bituminous surface is the only practical solution to this problem, and that it may well be less expensive than the constant attention which the street now needs,” the petitioners wrote.

Council President William Gafford said the council policy is not to put in a temporary blacktop surface on a street unless there is a formal petition on file signed by owners of 35 per cent of abutting front footage, asking for permanent improvement.

Mayor Carl Wyczawski said,”Otherwise we’d be asked to put on oil all over town and we’d never get improved roads in.”

THE CITY did attempt to control dust last summer on this stretch of road, said City Manager Richard Salvati, but only because traffic was diverted to it when 10th S. was closed for reconstruction.

Salvati said the city owns two blocks along this stretch but the city is neutral;the petition would need owners of 35 per cent of the private property involved. Abutting property owners pay for the cost of improvements.

Del Polzin spoke up from the audience,saying safety, not dust, is the main problem. He said many bikers must use the hill to get downtown and many cars went in the ditch in the winter due to the grade.

A petition is on file for 12th to 13th S.,another man noted.

A WOMAN in the audience who said she lived on Crestwood and had started the informal petition presented Tuesday, said she could never get abutting property owners to sign for permanent improvement.

Gafford said, “We have to treat everyone who comes in here the same, we haven’t done that for other streets in town.”

“No other road in town is as dangerous,”a woman in the audience responded.

Councilman John Mowan said the area is in his ward. “I would like to see an attempt made to get the petition signed. We don’t want a civil war there between the people on the hill and the others. If they absolutely refuse then we can look to some other alternative.”

The mayor said Mowan should meet with the people there and explain the matter to them.

When questions on cost of permanent improvement for the Payne Street Hill, Salvati said “it’s hard to predict” but noted construction costs are increasing about 10 to 15 per cent per year.

Councilman George Germann suggested the council give the abutting property owners assurance that the cost would be an average of what all residential street improvements cost the year it was done.

Gafford said he couldn’t give that assurance.

Mowan wondered if the property owners could file a petition and later withdraw it, after the temporary improvement was in.

City Atty. Terence Dempsey said they could withdraw it, but the council could then order in permanent improvement, anyway.

Gafford recommended Salvati study the surfaces and utilities needed in the street and report back to the council May 20; the council okayed this.

Gafford said the council could order the permanent improvement in without petition, or maybe a petition would be received by then.

New Ulm Daily Journal

May 7, 1975