Street change stalled (3/22/05)

The four Portland City Council members who attended Monday night’s meeting weren’t headed in the same direction.

The council voted on whether to make a portion of Massachusetts Avenue, from Boundary Pike to Seventh Street, one-way north. The vote was three to one, in favor of changing the two-way street.

Supporting the change were council members Linda Kennedy, Judy Aker and Bill Gibson. Council president Glen Bryant opposed the change.

Council members Kip Robinette, Dolphus Stephens and John Patterson did not attend Monday’s meeting.

City attorney Bill Hinkle said because only four of the seven council members were present, the vote had to be unanimous for the ordinance to pass on first reading.

Boundary Pike resident Debi Gillespie asked the council at the Feb. 7 meeting to consider changing Massachusetts Avenue from a two-way street to a one-way north street so she would not lose so much land to the Boundary Pike/Wayne Street project.

Plans for the project call for widening the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Boundary Pike, which would cause Gillespie to lose 6,000 square feet of her property. Boundary Pike and Massachusetts Avenue currently intersect at about a 25-degree angle. Making the street one-way north eliminates the need for expanding the angle.

Before the council voted Monday, Portland resident Carolyn Curtis, 461 E. Seventh St., asked the council to consider making that section of Massachusetts Avenue one-way south.

Curtis said she lives at the corner of Seventh Street and Massachusetts Avenue. Her house is located along Massachusetts Avenue, and her garage is located along Seventh Street. Curtis said if Massachusetts Avenue were one-way north, she would have to drive southeast on Boundary Pike, then north to get to her house.

After the meeting, Bryant said he cast the lone opposing vote because he thought there was a way the city could accommodate Curtis.

After he voted, Bryant suggested making Massachusetts Avenue one-way north only to Curtis’ driveway. He then made a motion for this alteration to the ordinance.

The council deadlocked in a two to two vote, with Gibson siding with Bryant and Aker and Kennedy voting against it.

City clerk-treasurer Barbara Blackford said this morning she did not know when or if the ordinance to make Massachusetts Avenue one-way north will go before the council again.

In other business, two five-year abatement requests by Stoneridge Inc., the parent company of Alphabet Inc.-Portland Division, were approved by the council.

Alphabet, 700 Industrial Drive, plans to install four new dock plates at the shipping dock at a cost of $23,804 and three wash fountains at a cost of $16,210. The improvements to the building would not create any additional jobs.

Before the council voted, Jay County Development Corporation executive director Robert Quadrozzi said the Portland Tax Abatement Advisory Committee discussed the abatement requests and recommended they be approved by the council.

A tax abatement allows companies to pay taxes in increasing increments over several years, instead of paying the full amount each year.

In a related matter, the council approved 10 compliance forms from Portland businesses, which have been granted 10-year tax abatements.

Council members vote yearly on the compliance forms for each abatement, Blackford said.[[In-content Ad]]