City and county hear from property owners along Fifth Street Road
Businesses and most residents want project to move forward

 

[August 30, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

Wednesday evening, the Lincoln City Council and the Logan County Board hosted a join Public Hearing/Public Meeting to hear from constituents, funding sources and engineers regarding the future of the Fifth Street Road Project.

Federal funds and state assistance has been secured for the total of just over 10 miles of new road construction running from Lincoln Parkway in Lincoln to the New Holland Black top in the county. The Logan County Board has secured the funding it needs for the more than six miles of the project that will be the county’s responsibility.

The city has secured funding for approximately two-thirds of the city portion of the project. The city share totals just over $7 million and the city is shy approximately $2.8 million. That funding will have to come from city coffers and money would need to be secured through bond issuance.

City Treasurer Chuck Conzo explained that the city would have the option of doing Alternate Revenue bonds, which would earmark certain general fund revenues to pay the bond, or it could issue a levy bond, which would then increase the property tax of Lincoln constituents.

However, the attainment of money is not the top priority at the moment. Currently of the 40 parcels of right-of-way land needed for the project, only 19 have been secured. It was brought up that the city can’t move forward until the property is purchased.

A large crowd was in attendance Wednesday night with a number of the folks present being land owners affected by the project. Six of those owners addressed the city and county. In their comments a few things became abundantly clear to the government officials.

Property owners on Fifth Street want the project to move forward. They have terrible water drainage issues on Fifth Street and they feel they must have the storm sewer drainage, and where called for, drainage ditches.

The condition of the road as it is now, is terrible. They feel that the road is causing travel hazards for motorists. They want a good road, and even if the city should downsize the overall project, they feel that something must be done to improve the road surface.

With the proposed plan of a three lane road, the overall width of the road would be 36 feet. Business owners such as Greg Basford with Heritage Packing are anxious to have the wider surface for their truck traffic.

Most of the property owners don’t see the necessity to create a bike path along the road, and would be just as happy to see that part of the plan taken out. Others say that they have not seen the plans since the bike path was added, so they can’t say for sure how they fell about it.

It also came to light that there are at least two property owners who have never been contacted about the sale of their right-of-ways, and several others reported that it has been quite some time since they have heard from anyone representing the engineering firms for the project.

While Stan Hanson of Crawford, Murphy and Tilly had reported quarterly contacts with all the holdout property owners, one such owner said he had not heard from CMT since August of 2016. Another said he continually makes calls trying to get answers about the acquisition offers and has not had his calls returned.

The conversations throughout the evening prompted Lincoln Alderman Tracy Welch to call for a second public meeting with invitations sent to all the property owners. He said that he wanted plans laid-out and explained to all the owners and wanted City Administrator Beth Kavelman to coordinate the meeting with the engineers quickly.

CMT representatives suggested an open house instead of a public meeting. It was suggested that the plans could be on display and would be explained to property owners in a more personal way. The open house would allow owners to come and go, speak directly to engineers and city government, and be able to understand how the acquisitions impact them personally.

Welch said if that was what was needed, then to get it done. The balance of the council appeared to agree with Welch’s recommendation. Kavelman will schedule a public open house and will work with CMT to assure that all property owners are invited.

The date is yet to be determined, but one owner did ask that the meeting be held sometime after September 14th.

LDN will have additional coverage of the Wednesday night meeting in a future edition.

[Nila Smith]