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Show Editorial - The Cedar City Council this week announced that plans for a Special Improvement District for a portion of the community had been dropped this year owing to the tremendous response of residents to install, on their own curb, gutter and sidewalks. It is evident that the consideration of an Improvement Im-provement District, whereby the city would install such facilities then charge it back to the property owner stimulated action on the part of residents to the extent that a major portion of the work has already been accomplished. Probably more curb and gutter and sidewalk has been poured this year than in any other single year in the history of the entire community. Now the city is in the process of preparing an oiling program and again will offer an advantage to property owners to have streets oiled from curb to curb which will constitute a major improvement for the community and one that we hope those who have installed curbs and gutters will take advantage of and complete a beautification program that will really real-ly be helpful to the individual property owners as well as the entire community. However, another factor is evident in connection connec-tion with the project this year. Nearly 100 of the improvement that has been accomplished has been done within the boundaries of the proposed improvement improve-ment district. In other words the threat of having the city come in and do the job under a single contract to be billed back to the property owner has forced residents into improvement installation. Outside the proposed improvement district very little improvement has been accomplished indicating that only those who were under the gun, so to speak, have acted. This brings home a point that in the future con-tinued con-tinued efforts to bring about an improvemejiLdistrlct on a city-wide basisjpjj in actMb?Wbitii zenry. ,.,. it,?,. It's unfortunate that the city had to go through the process of setting up an improvement district, which amounted to a considerabde expense to taxpayers, tax-payers, before a passive citizenry was forced into action. ac-tion. For many years the city has offered to provide services of the engineering department and city street department to set up the grade for curb and gutter, but in the past the offer has received only li-' li-' mited support. It took the threat of the improvement district to force action on the part of property owners own-ers With that thought in mind we feel that the city would be a miss to drop future action. If necessary, another improvement district program should be considered con-sidered for another year on a community wide basis and followed through to bring streets of the comnn--nity up to a standard that is conducive to one the size of Cedar City. For instance with the threat of an improvement district relaxed this year it will be interesting to see if residents now take advantage of the offer by the city to prepare roadways for the curb and curb oiling oil-ing program which will put the finishing touches on many of the streets of the community. If now residents fail to respond, we feel that the city would be justified in taking up the case of an improvement district again next year and following through to implement the program for a total streets improvement program throughout the community. ! The decision, it would seem now, is put back on the property owners to see if they will go all the ,,'Nvay to bring Cedar City streets to a standard that would be so much desired by all. |