By Megan Burks<\/span><\/p>\n

Council President Todd Gloria has convened a new committee on infrastructure. It held its first meeting<\/a> Monday. <\/p>\n

Committee Chairman and District 5 Councilman Mark Kersey laid out his plans<\/a> for the committee last week; they center on assessing the weight of our infrastructure problem first<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a memo<\/a>, District 9 Councilwoman Marti Emerald, who also sits on the committee, joined Kersey and other colleagues in laying out priorities for the committee. They include holding a \u201cfrank discussion\u201d about park deficiencies in older communities<\/a> and strategies for mitigating the problem.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a discussion that\u2019s been boiling up in City Heights as skaters in the community advance their campaign for a skatepark<\/a>. The community is about 100 acres short of the recommended park space for a community of its size. Youth say they don\u2019t have enough places to be active.<\/p>\n

Emerald said she wants to explore adding green space (along with more transit options) into future street designs.<\/p>\n

Emerald\u2019s memo<\/a> also touches on another common discussion in City Heights: one about the need for more streetlights. Emerald said there are $26 million in unfunded streetlights. She called for a survey of existing lights to identify dark spots. She wants to then cross reference that information with police reports to see where new lights could deter crime.<\/p>\n

City Heights groups have been slowly chipping away at the problem with similar grassroots efforts. The City Heights Town Council is currently working with Mid-City police to install lights on homes in poorly lit areas.<\/p>\n

Click here to see the memo.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Burks Council President Todd Gloria has convened a new committee on infrastructure. It held its first meeting Monday. Committee Chairman and District 5 Councilman Mark Kersey laid out his plans for the committee last week; they center on assessing the weight of our infrastructure problem first. In a memo, District 9 Councilwoman Marti […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,922,4],"tags":[840,1195,1205,204,330,934,166,1204,32,490],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-land-use-main","category-news","tag-complete-streets","tag-infrastructure","tag-infrastructure-committee","tag-land-use","tag-marti-emerald","tag-parks","tag-skatepark","tag-streetlights","tag-transit","tag-transportation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n