CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The curb outside of Cherie Bushwar's Corpus Christi home is unusual. The curb is what Bushwar called, "flipped up." It's where the point where the curb meets the street is pointed upward and measured at about 2 feet at its peak.
She said the city has been ignoring her complaints about the curb for a long time.
"I’ve been fighting this now for over 3 or 4 years now. And I’m not getting anywhere," Bushwar said.
"I contacted the stormwater department several years ago and they came out and sent an engineer out. He took pictures of it and said 'It'll be a couple of years', and those years have gone. And then I kept calling the city and [the city] kept giving me the run around. And this summer I started calling every week because it's getting worse," Bushwar said.
Not only is this difficult for Bushwar who is disabled, to park on her own street. She said it is also difficult for medical personnel to come to take care of her elderly mother.
"I have caregivers and nurses and PT people come to the house all the time because my mother is 97 years old and I have people here all the time," Bushwar said.
City Councilmember for District 2, Sylvia Campos, said there is a log with work orders that processes issues like this.
"I'm sorry that there are some areas some households that have more damage than others, but it would have to be the whole street that would have to be addressed. It's not just that one particular resident," Campos said.
Campos attributed some of the delay to having to rebuild the street department, even remembering driving over damaged roads herself.
"We would go through I don’t know how many potholes, right? And we would say, or I would hear, well where does the money go? How come we are not getting these fixed? Well, for one thing that happened in our history is that we dissolved a lot of the street department and we’re having to build that up again. And that’s the honest truth," she said.
Campos said she wants citizens to reach out to her and other council members if they feel they are not being heard.
"If you do not get a response that you want, or you like or you are satisfied with. Then the next thing is yes, call your city representative. And that’s why I ran. Because we have to be responsible to our community. We will figure it out," Campos said.
UPDATE:
The city's infrastructure management plan showed Bushwar's street is scheduled to be resurfaced in 2024 but does not include curbs.
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