Brick streets and sidewalks in Lawrence’s historic neighborhoods may have to go without repair and maintenance in 2005.

During the second day of City Commission budget hearings Tuesday, Public Works Director Chuck Soules said the brick maintenance fund might be reduced because street spending in recent years has outpaced gasoline tax appropriations from the state.

Eliminating that maintenance would save $85,000 in 2005, Soules said.

“It doesn’t go too far, ” Soules said. “We’re just able to do area repairs.”

The news alarmed the city’s historic preservationists.

“It is the original street surfacing material, and it fits in the character of those historic neighborhoods,” said Carol von Tersch, president of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance.

“In those neighborhoods where we have them, we’d like to keep them,” she said. “And we’d like to strip the asphalt from the streets where it’s been covered.”

Mayor Mike Rundle said he believed the cut for brick street maintenance would be temporary. But he said the city, in the long term, might need to be pickier about which brick streets it chose to maintain.

“We don’t have unlimited funds,” Rundle said. “It should be focused; it should be prioritized.”

Drainage problems are plaguing downtown alleys so much that the city's Public Works Department is asking the Lawrence City Commission to approve a 50,000 outlay in 2005 to repair the alley near the old Carnegie Library building. The department's proposed budget presented Tuesday also calls for deferring an 5,000 outlay for repair of brick streets and sidewalks -- a plan met with objection by preservationists. Pedestrians walking downtown Tuesday dodged the puddles in the alleys on the east side of Massachusetts Street.

Advocates for brick streets say they last longer than their asphalt counterparts. There is a flip side, however.

“A brick street is substantially more expensive to reconstruct than an asphalt street,” Soules said.

The brick street fund was just one cut Soules proposed for his department’s 2005 budget. He also suggested cutting $25,000 from the curb repair fund to replenish stores of sand and salt depleted during the harsh winter.

Soules also requested funding to rebuild downtown alleys, to preserve that neighborhood. His department already plans to spend $150,000 to restore the alley behind Carnegie Library, Ninth and Vermont streets.

“We have drainage problems,” Soules said. “They’re in deteriorating shape.”

Rundle said commissioners would continue to wrestle with street maintenance funding, knowing that costs deferred now may be magnified later.

“It’s just a huge question,” he said.

Budget hearings continue at 9 a.m. today on the fourth floor of City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets, then move at 10:30 a.m. to the City Commission chambers on the first floor.