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Okoboji City Officials Outline Concerns Over Hwy 71 Project They Plan To Air With D.O.T At Public Meeting

December 14, 2021 Steve Schwaller

(Okoboji)– Plans to renovate Highway 71 through the Lakes Corridor are drawing concern from city officials in Okoboji, and they plan to air those with representatives of the Iowa Department of Transportation during an informational meeting Tuesday evening (Dec. 14th). Council member Julie Andres says they’re especially worried about plans to limit traffic to southbound only while some of the work is going on and the potential impact it could have on residents and businesses, even though the work will be done outside of the busy season…

“We want to make sure that two-way traffic can be maintained, particularly across the bridge so people can access obviously not only their daily workplaces, schools, but emergency services as well. And so those are the things we’re looking at. We think there’s a good solution. We don’t think it all has to be done in one long lane making it so that you have to re-route around ’86. We think it can be done in chunks and staged so that a 10 minute ambulance ride doesn’t turn into a 35 minute one.”

Andres encourages those with concerns to attend the meeting. She says not only will it impact residents and businesses in the construction zone itself between 202nd Street south of Emerald Hills and East View Avenue in Okoboji, but also those to the north, in Spirit Lake, and to the south, in Milford…

“The Iowa Great Lakes has grown a lot since the last time we went through this construction. There’s several businesses that are open year-round, several of us that feel like we have to be open year-round in order to maintain a quality workforce, and so yeah, we would love to have anybody that lives here, works here, plays here, stays here, everybody’s welcome to attend.”

There’s also concern among possible impacts to law enforcement. Okoboji Police Chief Jason Peterson…

“My main concerns are response times. We have sharing agreements with the Arnolds Park Police Department and that would prevent those agreements from being able to happen.”

Tuesday’s meeting begins at 6:00 pm and will be held in the north half of the Pebble Beach Room at Arrowwood Resort and Convention Center in Okoboji.

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