It’s been roughly nine months since City Council members approved new emergency lighting under the North Main Street railroad viaduct.

There was, if you remember, a couple of months of discussion on the matter. City development department officials wanted to spend about $150,000 on a public parklet with new lights and seating to create a transition area from Brooklyn Square to the rest of downtown. City Council members balked at the price tag and the likely cost to try to secure the area from vandalism in the evening hours, preferring instead to install security lighting to help city police officers better see the areas under the bridge while they’re on patrol.

Temporary lighting has been installed, but there has been no progress in hiring a company to install permanent lighting. Crystal Surdyk, city development director, was asked about the project last week and said she would work to get a bid package put together to get the project moving.

The wheels of government churn slowly, but this is a bit too slowly.

We’re honestly not sure why this project falls under Surdyk’s purview, since it could just as easily be a public works project handled by Mark Roetzer, interim public works director. Of course, Roetzer has had his hands full with construction of the city’s fleet maintenance garage and winter street maintenance.

The delay, in our opinion, stems from the fact that the city development director’s job is simply too large for one person to handle without something slipping through the cracks. It’s important to note Surdyk’s department has spent the past several months working on three housing-related ordinances that likely took hundreds of hours of staff time to put together, have been busy overseeing a busy code enforcement office and overseeing state and federal grants the city has received for housing and development.

More attention is needed on development. And then there are all the little things – like new safety lights – that end up on the development director’s desk, too. Seen through that lens it’s easy to see why the permanent safety lights have taken a back seat. In our opinion, it’s time for the city to give serious thought to finding a way to separate housing from the development director’s job, or at least take some of the work off of the position’s plate without simply hiring an additional position.

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