• On February 26 the City of Groton will have a special election to determine if the 2013 curb & gutter project should proceed as planned.  As we approach the Groton special election, the Groton City Council feels there is some background information that needs to be reviewed before Groton's voters head to the polls.  In the next two weeks we will try to explain how and why we are at this point.
• The background starts with a proposed project at the budget hearing in August 2012.  At budget time we planned to finish this section of town with a project to only dig out and finish E 8^th Avenue and E 9^th Avenue between N 6^th St and N 3^th St with asphalt mat.  This would give the school buses another good road to travel.  On N 5^th St between these 2 avenues, curb & gutter would be installed and all of the street would be dug out and rebuilt with an asphalt mat surface.
• The City Council subsequently listened to requests to improve drainage on E 5^th Avenue along the floodway from N 6^th St back to N 5^th St.  This included curb & gutter, lowering or increasing culverts, and storm sewer improvements as well rebuilding the street.  This would add N 5^th St from E 6^th Ave to E 5^th Ave and E 5^th Ave from N 4^th St to N 6^th St.   After talking about this for several meetings, N 5^th St from E 4^th Ave to E 5^th Ave was added to address the storm water drainage to the area coming from the south.
• A further request for drainage on N 6^th St from E 14^th Ave to E 16^th Ave added another section of curb & gutter and storm sewer.  The expanded project was set.  Engineering started. 
• At the November 19, 2012 City Council meeting, Bonnie Larson presented a petition from the residents of her block on N 5^th St from E 2^nd Ave to E 3^rd Ave to be included in the 2013 curb & gutter project.  This opened the discussion again to add the only block remaining on N 5^th St between the petitioned project and that of planned 2013 project (from E 3^rd Ave to E 4^th Ave).   More discussion pointed out that the final 2 blocks of N 5^th St south of E 2^nd Ave was all that was left to complete N 5^th St.  The City Council voted to include all these blocks in the 2013 project and we finally were ready for the public hearing

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