Town to sidewalk Ellison St. with yellow bricks?

The town’s unofficial board meeting will be held on Zoom tonight. There are a couple of annexations up for discussion, and several town staff commemorative weeks to proclaim, along with a few other things.

The agenda is available on the town website, as usual.
http://townofhopemills.com/agendacenter
It’s always a good read and helpful with trying to keep up with what’s going on in your local government.

One of the few “other things” is on the last page of the Manager’s Report at the back, where it mentions a $415,000 Community Development Block Grant. The town staff says if they get the grant, they will build a sidewalk beside Ellison St. from W. Patterson St. to Cross St.

It would be great to have $415,000, and filling out a grant application is probably good practice for somebody, but a sidewalk there cannot be the best use for $415,000 from the town’s standpoint or the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s. Even if you get $415,000 for something, it doesn’t automatically become a good idea. And you shouldn’t be doling out or accepting $415,000 for bad ideas.

We took this picture for reference, since many local residents we’ve heard from have never been on this street, at least not in years. While we were taking the picture, we’re pretty sure there was a guy at the Alms House yelling at us, or the sky, or something, but he was too far away and slurring too much to understand, and he never came closer so we didn’t wait around.

If you had $415,000, would you build a sidewalk here?