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Cleveland plans to spend $3.2 million more on road repairs and resurfacing this year. (The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An extra $3.2 million from

will bump Cleveland's street re-paving and repairs this year to just under $26.5 million, an amount Jackson acknowledges is a drop in the bucket for a city with $300 million in re-paving needs.

With money short, the city is turning to new strategies to identify streets most in need and make others last longer once they are fixed. Jackson said he will revive a long dormant work program to seal street cracks and prolong the life of new pavement.

Mayor Frank Jackson says the city is getting tough on potholes.

"Neighborhood needs are not on the back burner, they are on the front burner," he said Monday during a meeting with Plain Dealer reporters and editors.

At the same meeting, the mayor also outlined other investments designed to improve city neighborhoods this year. The spending plans include:

•$6 million for upgrades at parks, playgrounds and recreation centers.

•$15 million for capital improvements at recreation centers as well as police and fire stations.

• $1 million for a pilot project to fix sidewalks broken by tree roots in Wards 1 and 3. Another $2 million will be spent to extend the program citywide next year. Under existing city policy, homeowners are responsible for sidewalk repairs.

"Every time I go on a neighborhood walk, one of the biggest complaints I get is 'You're tree on the tree lawn is causing damages to the sidewalk," the mayor said.

But Jackson also said he is keenly aware of the city's cracked and cratered city streets and the need to get them repaired.

Since 2009, the city has been using a software program that assigns numerical grades to all streets. "It allows us to select roads that are in most need of repair," said the city's chief operating officer, Darnell Brown.

The $26.5 million resurfacing budget for this year is a combination of state and city dollars. Normally, the city spends $4.4 million annually on resurfacing projects. This year, it is adding an extra $3.2 million, plus $1.6 million that was budgeted last year but not spent. City leaders have identified about 80 streets for new toppings.

The state this year is kicking in $17.2 million to completely rebuild Lorain and Puritas Avenues on the city's West Side and Martin Luther King Boulevard between Buckingham and Cedar Avenues on the East Side.

"The bottom line is we're starting to make a dent in fixing all the city streets," said Jackson spokeswoman Maureen Harper.

The city has also begun using hot asphalt patches rather than cold patches which, Jackson said, don't last.

"The old way of doing it has caused us to fall behind," he said.