With all the talk of how to pay for a five year road plan, nobody seems to be willing to publicly acknowledge the obvious: Brainerd has more roads to fix and maintain than it has tax base to pay for them. This isn't a taxing problem and it isn't a spending problem. It is an insolvency problem, one that debt can only make worse.

There is no budget solution to this problem that will allow us to continue as we have, only rational ways to respond to this complex set of problems. When you are insolvent, here are the most obvious things to do:

1. Stop building new roads. Stop annexing more land.

The growth theories that justified expanding College Drive - the latest in a long line of such projects - are not working. After decades of road building, you can drive through town in no time, but the tax base necessary to support all these miles of asphalt isn't there. All that land hastily annexed gave the city a quick infusion of cash but also brought enormous long term maintenance obligations. Nobody ever did the math to determine whether or not these transactions made sense; we just chased the growth. These are mistakes we need to stop repeating.

2. Take stock of how difficult the situation actually is.

A city that already owes millions, is obligated to make millions in debt payments each year and is looking to spend many millions more on roads over the next few years (all while struggling with structural deficits) should be able to answer some simple questions:

How many total miles of roads, streets, sidewalks and curb do we have in our inventory? What is the current condition of each segment? When will each road need to be reconstructed? What is the estimated cost of that reconstruction? What is the annual revenue stream needed to meet these obligations? When will cash flow problems present?

It is unimaginable to be considering a five year, multi-million dollar spending plan without this basic financial information. Public officials should be demanding it.

3. Prioritize basic maintenance.

How can we be considering building anything else when we can't maintain what we already have, when we are not doing the low cost maintenance items that keep things from falling apart? Annual crack sealing should be the highest priority since it is relatively low cost and extends the pavement life years, even decades. Chip sealing should come right after. Only after our base maintenance responsibilities are completed should we even be considering reconstruction, expansion or constructing new road segments.

4. Prioritize the city's most financially productive neighborhoods.