Waukon City Council holds special session to discuss options with Third Street NE improvement project

by Dwight Jones

The Waukon City Council met in special session the evening of Thursday, March 29 to continue discussions on the proposed Third Street NE improvement project. Monday, March 19 the Council held an informational meeting for property owners throughout the area, many of whom had received letters from the City stating that they had sizeable estimated assessments, some well above $10,000.
Property owners had expressed a variety of concerns including how widening the street would cause the loss of many of the mature trees along the street along with the hefty assessments themselves. The March 29 meeting was a follow-up to those concerns, along with a chance to review where the City stood legally in regard to moving forward with the assessments.
City Attorney Jim Garrett started the meeting by explaining the legalities of the assessments and said that neither he nor Lyle TeKippe, who had engineered the project, were policy advisors and encouraged the Council to consider speaking with individuals with expertise in assessments to gain a more educated opinion. The Council had discussed possibly meeting individually with affected property owners that wanted a review of their situation, but Garrett explained that he felt that though that was a good idea it might be premature and suggested holding off until outside legal advice had been given. Garrett also explained that the advice would likely come with a price tag and stated that, though not ideal, the Council did have the option of using Local Option Sales Tax funds to pay for those additional expenses.
The Council then approved a motion to allow Garrett to move forward with seeking legal assistance to make certain that the process they were suggesting was, indeed, being done correctly. Also, the Council approved the hiring of an arborist to review the trees on the street to determine their health as many appear to the naked eye to be under at least some distress and may have to come down in the near future anyway.
Next, the Council reviewed options for getting an accurate judge on the amount of traffic and types of traffic that use the street. Also, questions arose over how concrete vs. asphalt could change the cost and final product. Due to the fact that there is not currently a good base under a sizeable portion of the street, TeKippe had reservations about the feasibility of changing even a portion of the project to asphalt.
Councilman Joe Cunningham explained that “the more info we can glean lets the City make better decisions and gives the citizens more solid information” regarding the project. With that, he made a motion to approve the City moving forward with locating additional assistance to review the project and to identify options that could currently be overlooked.  He explained how some cities have street projects with the “Go Green” concept that calls for less asphalt and more green space. These and many other possibilities were discussed.
TeKippe then explained that not only in Waukon but in most cities and towns, 31-foot streets are considered “normal” if parking is allowed on both sides of the road. Varying width streets (of which this street currently is) make traffic difficult and can be considered a safety concern.
Other ideas were discussed, such as the possibility of allowing homeowners with existing curb and gutter or sidewalk in good condition in front of their homes a “credit”. The possibility of keeping the street narrow and making it a one-way street with parking on just one side was discussed, though it didn’t seem to get much traction.
Following all of the different scenarios that were discussed, it was decided to move forward with the Public Hearing scheduled for the next regularly scheduled council meeting April 2, which will once again give the property owners from the area an opportunity to ask questions, provide more input and hopefully move closer to an end project that all parties can be comfortable with.