It had become a tradition in Great Bend. Each summer the city would announce a list of residential streets that would receive an overlay and residents would look to see if it was their street that would receive needed repairs. But that didn’t happen this year, not because the city has forgotten about the importance of maintaining their existing streets, but because the way those streets are identified has changed.

Here’s City Administrator Kendal Francis.

Kendal Francis Audio

Great Bend lured former City Engineer Carl Otter out of retirement to head the project that will use the GIS technology to rate every street in Great Bend to formulate a 5 – 7 year street improvement plan.

Kendal Francis Audio

Francis expects Otter to complete the work in the next couple of months. In the meantime, the city plans to begin a street improvement project in the downtown corridor from Williams to Kansas and from 10th to 16th streets that Francis expects to go to bid in the near future.

Funds for the project come from a quarter cent sales tax that is specifically tied to street replacement, maintenance, and repairs throughout the City. That sales tax was renewed by voters for 10-years and the collection began in July of 2018.