SEQUIM — The City Council began discussing budgeting for 2005 at Monday night’s business meeting, but the conversation was limited to street improvement projects.
City Manager Bill Elliott told council members that he needed their guidance on which projects to prioritize before he crunched numbers that would eventually fit into a proposed budget they will review and adopt by the end of the year.
Aside from fixed costs such as payroll, street projects represent most of the city’s annual expenditures.
Last summer’s downtown revitalization project — which concentrated on upgrading Washington Street and two parallel roads running through the city center — set into motion a list of projects tailored to complement the $5 million, federally funded renovation.
Public Works Director Jim Bay told council members his preferences on projects centered on engineering and construction to extend West Brownfield Road from Sequim Avenue to Third Avenue; to place a traffic circle, or “roundabout,” at the intersection of Old Olympic Highway and Sequim-Dungeness Way; and to improve Fir Street in the downtown area for better east-west traffic flow.
A proposed retail center near South Sequim Avenue and U.S. Highway 101 prompted council members in August to move toward improving East Brownfield Road.