A sign at the southern end of the new Main Street Viaduct touts Butler as a great place to live, and most people who reside here would agree.

Coming across the bridge into Butler, construction cranes are visible at the sites of the new Wayne Street Viaduct, South Monroe Street Bridge and the Butler Memorial Hospital expansion project. The cranes are symbols of strides being made in some aspects of the community.

But switch the focus to what Butler city government will be accomplishing during this year's warm-weather months in terms of its streets and a vastly different picture emerges. Sadly, the city government, on the streets front at least, will be imitating the decades-long stagnation — a better description might be "do-nothingness" — of the past, and that should not sit well with residents.

The current plan is for only about $33,500 to be used for actual street resurfacing this year — for a small portion of South Monroe Street between Cunningham Street and the new South Monroe Street Bridge.

Not only will the Memorial Park pool remain closed for yet another year, but numerous city streets that are badly in need of resurfacing or major pothole repairs will continue to be neglected — and continue to deteriorate, adding to the cost of repairs when the city finally gets around to them.

Not even the city's new municipal services tax, which has helped the city emerge from the dire financial straits of a few years ago, is being allowed to provide flexibility to attack some of the major street problems that continue to dog the downtown area and residential neighborhoods.

This year the excuse is last fall's high price of road salt for winter street maintenance, but city leaders haven't shown any desire to find funds elsewhere in the 2009 budget for badly needed resurfacing.

It is common for communities to transfer money from one budget category to another as needs dictate.

It is hard to fathom that there is no flexibility within the budget to make more money available for streets work.

Considering the scope of the city's streets problems, no less than a couple of hundred thousand dollars should be spent for such work this year.

Residents and people who work in the city are justified in wondering how much longer badly deteriorated roadways such as Mercer and West Wayne streets and portions of Washington Street are destined to remain projects for the future. Meanwhile, there appears to be virtually no hope for less-traveled streets in many of the neighborhoods that are potentially damaging to vehicles that must use them — Reo Street off Route 68 east fits that category.

And, city leaders are ignoring the fact that the city's property owners and taxpayers should be entitled to streets that are not full of ragged craters capable of ruining tires or damaging suspension systems.

While the city did make some progress in addressing bad street conditions over the past couple of years, this year's next-to-nothing repair plan is reminiscent of the many years of neglect that allowed numerous streets to become travel nightmares totally out of sync with the positive city image that its leaders are otherwise trying to promote.

A couple of years ago, on the streets front, it seemed that the city had turned the corner from the virtual do-nothingness that had prevailed for so long. Now it appears the old, unproductive mind-set might be returning.

An allocation of $33,500 for street resurfacing isn't the stuff of a progressive community.

City leaders should take a close look at this year's city budget and perhaps reconsider some priorities. The status quo, as far as the condition of some city streets, is unacceptable.

The condition of the city's streets is much more important than city leaders currently are acknowledging. It's past time for city government to recognize this and find a solution.