It took eight years of planning, nearly $5 million and countless hours of paperwork, but the small town of Emery, South Dakota finally has new asphalt streets. Residents of Emery – a Hanson County burg of about 450 people and home to a crucial grain elevator – endured failing streets for decades, then drove on gravel roads for a year, and will now pay $20 a month more in taxes for the next 20 years just to have better local streets.
“Getting new infrastructure in these small towns is certainly a challenge because it’s definitely not easy and I could see how some people would get doom and gloom over it,” said Joshua Kayser, mayor of Emery, who landed some state help for the project by redoing aging sewer and water lines during the roadwork. “It was a long process and it took a lot more effort than I anticipated. But it was worth it.”
All cities and counties in South Dakota struggle to keep up with roads that wear down over time and suffer potholes and degradation due to rainfall and the annual freeze and thaw process. For cities of 5,000 and under, however, the challenges are heightened by a restricted amount of revenue and reduced economies of scale. Small-town governments may also be more susceptible to complaints and grumbling from taxpayers who may be their neighbors, and who either want better streets or cannot afford to pay more taxes.
“Maintaining infrastructure, including roads, has been our number one issue for a long time,” said Yvonne Taylor, executive director of the South Dakota Municipal League. “The small towns do have it tough, that’s true. They just don’t have the resources there and the tax base there and it is tough for a smaller town to keep up.
”The concerns over allowing local roads to deteriorate range from letting small problems grow into big, more expensive problems to putting a community’s growth and economic development at risk. “I’ve hosted a number of businesses as they’ve looked at various sites, and they always look at the roads,” said Joe Fiala, community development director for the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “Having good transportation infrastructure is really important for economic development, whether it’s an existing business in a small town expanding or one looking to relocate. If they don’t have good roads to move products in and out, that impacts how profitable they can be.”
(Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch)