(Okoboji)– Some cities along the Highway 71 corridor through the Iowa Great Lakes are having second thoughts about a study into traffic flow and ways to make the thoroughfare more pedestrian friendly. The city of Okoboji is among them.
An earlier proposal would have had the funding for the study being provided by Imagine Iowa Great Lakes and the Iowa Department of Transportation. But City Administrator Michael Meyers told the Okoboji City Council Tuesday evening that’s now changed…
“McClure Engineering and Imagine requested $250,000; the Iowa D.O.T. said we’ll do $125,000 but we want the cities involved to also pitch in $125,000, which is different from what was originally brought to us when they came to us and said this would be no cost to the cities, the D.O.T’s going to do $250,000 and Imagine’s going to do $250,000 so it’s a little bit different than what the original conversation was.”
Meyers said the other $125,000 requested locally would be divied up among the cities based on assessed valuation, putting Okoboji’s share of the cost at $22,500. That drew concern from several council members, including Jim Hentges. He referred to funding the D.O.T has already set aside for improvements to the highway…
“The D.O.T.’s already got $11.5 million and they already know what they want to do because it works. It’s fine to give them our support to do this study, but it’s probably going to wind up being the same the D.O.T wants it anyway, so I don’t see where we have to spend a nickel. I mean some of the things they laid out there didn’t go over well to say the least with a lot of people.”
The other four council members agreed and directed Meyers to relay that consensus.
The city of Milford also opted out of the study at their meeting Tuesday evening.
Spirit Lake City Attorney/Administrator Gregg Owens tells KUOO news they weren’t approached about contributing toward the study, adding they didn’t express interest in the original proposal.
