Though the McCleary City Council didn’t discuss the situation at length, Mayor Brent Schiller said the city would be facing a frank conversation about city streets in the near future.

“The city streets — they’re pretty much garbage,” Schiller said. “The city asphalt program, the street program, it’s a complete failure and we’re losing everything. How are we going to sustain this into the future, and I think it’s time we take a real hard look at what we’re doing… There isn’t one street when you drive around town that doesn’t have a pothole, except the main arterials.”

Without the city actively repairing streets, the prognosis is dismal.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Schiller said. “Our asphalt budget is roughly $16,000 per year, if that. That’s not even a street… It’s undeniable, and every winter, every hard freeze and rain we get, it only makes it worse… I know everyone sees it, it’s just now we have to start addressing it.”

Moving forward, Schiller is hoping the council will review spending on city streets and hopes the city can begin better upkeep.

Highway exit

At the tail end of the Sept. 27 council meeting, Mayor Schiller floated an idea that the city could ask the state Department of Transportation to deal with the city’s west exit from Highway 8.

Currently, the exit from Highway 8 to State Route 108, which brings vehicles into the City of McCleary from the west, is closed due to the ongoing construction on Highway 8.

The DOT is replacing two fish passages on Highway 8 and the State Route 108 exit will be closed for the full two years of the project. The project is being completed in two phases. Currently, the eastbound lanes are closed. Next year, the traffic will shift and the westbound lanes will be addressed.

When the traffic shifts next year, DOT will have access to the State Route 108 intersection. Schiller said it will be a good opportunity to make safety improvements to the intersection.

Schiller also floated the idea of leaving the exit closed since residents would be “used to it” by the time the highway project was over, or making the intersection a “right in, right out” and taking out the median at the intersection.

The council did not discuss the issue.