There are many problems plaguing the City of Indianola when it comes to infrastructure and maintenance, and it seems more than a handful of those issues can be found on Baker Street.
A group of citizens in the 500 block expressed concerns to The E-T this week about work that had been promised and never done, maintenance issues and portions of the street that are disintegrating.
“It’s ridiculous,” Lenora Griffin said.
Griffin and neighbor Ruth Anne Manuel said they have contacted city leaders multiple times about Baker Street’s problems, most notably the large potholes that have appeared on the back exit of the shopping center that houses Young Ideas and Los Molcajetes.
Griffin said that she noticed the No Truck sign on the street was recently removed, and she said that a nearby auto parts store’s transport truck was using Baker Street late at night instead of returning directly to U.S. 82.
She said that truck and others have caused damage to the streets.
Manuel said that city workers also cut her ditch incorrectly.
“They cut my ditch so far, you almost run off in the darn ditch, and one of my friends did run off in it,” she said.
Manuel said city workers promised they would be back to fix it, but they never returned.
She said she has also been receiving higher water bills than normal, an issue that has been coming up with more regularity with city customers lately. She also said that the street is overrun with mosquitoes, and she has not seen the truck come by to spray since the summer.
Mayor Steve Rosenthal told The E-T this week that these issues are not confined to Baker Street, and many of them have occurred because the weather has not allowed for workers to come back and address the problems.
He said he is hoping for warmer, dryer weather in the near future that will allow the city to deploy its best equipment for these jobs.
