Council members discuss Wetmore closure, road damage and reviving crack-fill program

Council members at a Struthers City Council meeting discussed local road conditions, including the Wetmore closure and the condition of recently repaved streets, and suggested reviving the city's crack-fill program.

During the finance and legislation portion of the meeting, council members asked whether the city had received complaints about Wetmore being closed; speakers said they had not. One council member noted that within two weeks "they had the whole birch taken out," indicating fast progress on related removal work. Another member said road surfaces are taking a beating and suggested the council discuss bringing the crack-fill program back for preventative maintenance, noting that targeted crack filling on less damaged roads could extend pavement life and allow crews to cover more square footage rather than concentrating resources on severely damaged streets.

Council members mentioned Center Street as an example of a newer road and described a difference between using crack-fill as a stopgap on badly damaged roads versus using it proactively on roads with one or two cracks so repairs last longer. No formal action, motion or vote on a crack-fill program was recorded in the provided transcript; the discussion ended with a general agreement to revisit the topic with administration and a call for future workshops on the budget and related street programs.

The meeting record does not include details on scheduling for workshops, funding amounts for a revived crack-fill effort, or which department would carry out the program; those details were not specified in the transcript.