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East side gets the sidewalks HUD funds will be used in historic district By JIM DAVIS A historic east Medford neighborhood will get federal assistance to fix its sidewalks, while neighbors on West Eighth Street in west Medford will wait another year. Councilmen Skip Knight and Sal Esquivel -- who represent Ward 2, which includes Eighth Street -- said they favored redirecting $26,440 of federal Housing and Urban Development funds from Eighth to Geneva and Minnesota avenues. "We're just going down the list," Knight said. "This is the natural progression. We'll get to Eighth Street at another time." The council voted 6-0 Thursday night to move the money from West Eighth to the historic district. Councilman Matt Hart was absent and Councilman John Michaels abstained because his wife testified in the public hearing. His wife, Gigi Michaels, West Medford Community Coaltion program director, said that her board did not think this was an east-west issue. But she said that she was concerned that HUD money was being used in the pricey historic district while there were other streets in the surrounding neighborhood that didn't have sidewalks. She was the only person to testify at the public hearing. The Geneva-Minnesota area qualifies for HUD funds because it is part of a larger area in which at least 51 percent of the households have moderate or low incomes. City officials say the Geneva-Minnesota sidewalks were to be repaired last year with HUD funds, before a sidewalk project on King Street absorbed all the money available. Since the city had planned to do the Geneva-Minnesota project before the West Eighth Street, the change would simply put the projects back in their original order and the Eighth Street project would be budgeted for next year. Public Works Director Corey Crebbin said his staff pushed the issue. He said that it would take as much as $60,000 to complete the sidewalk on Eighth Street between Elm and Orange streets; with the $26,440, the city would have enough money to fix the sidewalks on Geneva and Minnesota avenues. Knight and Esquivel both said they didn't feel this was an east-west issue. "I don't want to go down this road on this east-west issue," Esquivel said. Councilman Curt Bennett said that he was relieved that his fellow councilmen were not making this into an east-versus-west issue. In the past 11 years, only three out of 61 community block development grants have gone to neighborhoods on the east side of Bear Creek, Bennett said. Gigi Michaels said that even though the city can repair sidewalks in the Geneva-Minnesota neighborhood, it doesn't mean the city should. "They (council members) have a plan and they're sticking to it," Gigi Michaels said. "And that's their choice." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA