‘I beg you to reconsider’: Finance Committee ignores roundabout plea, sends counterproposal to county

QUINCY — Despite a passionate plea from a retired city engineer to reconsider building a roundabout, the Finance Committee agreed Monday night to send to the full Quincy City Council a recommendation for the transfer of jurisdiction for the intersection of 48^th and State.

Aldermen voted on April 1 not to contribute $2.6 million to build a roundabout at the intersection. The County Board interpreted the City Council’s decision as a failure to abide by a 1973 intergovernmental agreement signed by then-Mayor Don Nicholson calling for the transfer of the roads to the city. Adams County Board members then voted on April 11 in favor of a jurisdictional transfer of the land surrounding the intersection to the city.

Quincy Mayor Mike Troup, Engineering Director Steve Bange and Corporation Counsel Bruce Alford met Sept. 5 with Adams County Engineer Jim Frankenhoff and Todd Eyler and Erin Wilson Lageler from the Adams County State’s Attorney’s Office to discuss options for the transfer of jurisdiction. The areas under consideration were:

• South 48^th from Broadway to 1,346 feet south of State
• State from 600 feet west of South 48^th to 175 feet east of South 48^th
• Seminary Road from 12^th to 18^th
• North 18^th from Seminary Road to Locust

The city recently resurfaced the sections of Seminary Road and North 18^th.

Four options were created during the Sept. 5 meeting to be presented to the City Council and the County Board. Those options were:

• Construct the roundabout with shared costs and a $650,000 transfer
• Modify the jurisdictional transfer and a partial payment
• Follow the original jurisdictional transfer created in 1973 
• Follow the original jurisdictional transfer with an optional $650,000 payment from the county to the city

County officials prefer to build the roundabout, with the county now paying $3.25 million and the city paying $1.95 million. The costs originally were to be shared evenly, but the county has offered to provide $650,000 to compensate for the additional jurisdictional transfers of the sections of Seminary Road and North 18^th.

“I think past precedence shows that the City Council was not in favor of the roundabout,” Bange said to the Finance Committee.

The Finance Committee — comprised of aldermen Mike Rein (R-5), Tony Sassen (R-4), Richie Reis (D-6), Jack Holtschlag (D-7) and Eric Entrup (R-1) — voted for an option that would create a new jurisdictional transfer agreement and alter a proposed payment from the county. 

The city would assume the State Street portion of the agreement, but it would only assume South 48^th from Broadway to 300 feet south of State. The county would retain jurisdiction of the remaining portion of South 48^th, including a pipe culvert and embankment that are need approximately $500,000 in repairs.

The Finance Committee also voted to change the county’s proposed payment from $100,000 to $650,000 for the official transfer of the segments of Seminary Road and North 18^th. 

Troup said the county wanted to give the city $650,000 but use $500,000 to take care of the culvert on South 48^th.

“We are recommending a counter proposal because we have a tighter intersection that we’re agreeing to,” he said. “(From the) culvert south, which has always been a county highway, would remain a county highway. Therefore, they should pay that out of the county highway proceeds, and they should transfer the full $650,000 to the city.”

“It’s basically about 900 feet less, give or take, on 48th Street,” Bange said. “It’s a section of 48th Street that definitely would be considered a rural section.”

After the Finance Committee voted to send the recommendation to the full council, retired city engineer Pat Poepping addressed the group. He said the city’s growth is to the east, and he said the roundabout was needed eight years ago. He didn’t want to see the city give up a project with a potential financial match from the county.

“I know that when I worked for the city, we fought for matches,” Poepping said. “We never passed up a match on a worthwhile project ever, and you’ve got 50 percent money. It’s ridiculous to pass that up, in my opinion.”

Poepping said any city that has built a roundabout hasn’t stopped at one.

“You take Columbia (Mo.). What are they at, 30?” he said. “Down in the Sarasota area, we have 70 of them, and they’re building 20 more. You know why? Because the things work, and they work great.

“There’s no better place to acquaint the people in this city with a roundabout than at 48th and State. It’s isolated. You own the right of way, so that’s a no-brainer. You can start it tomorrow if you want to put bids out. I beg you to reconsider this decision to turn down this roundabout. Think progressive. Let’s move forward with a roundabout.”

Sassen told Poepping that nobody is against the roundabout.

“We’re against the spending of that amount of money with the streets we have to repair now,” he said.

Poepping said he was involved in the creation of the 1973 city-county agreement.

“We wrote it to grow 48^th Street and Maine Street,” he said. “We built a lot of good things, and now you want to throw it to the wind. That makes no sense.”

Even though constructing the roundabout was one of the four options created in the Sept. 5 meeting, Rein said the roundabout proposal was dead when the aldermen voted it down in April.

“That’s not our list,” he said. “That is the County Board sticking their nose in our business. Why is the County Board putting stuff on our agenda. We don’t put anything on their damned agenda.”

Rein said the cost of a roundabout was between $1 million and $1.2 million when it was first presented to the city.

“Then suddenly the county’s involved,” he said. “They weren’t originally. We weren’t even talking about this, and then they started buying up land or something. Well, what are the hell they doing that for? So it became their project and not ours. It makes sense for them because it’s their land.

“Look, I like roundabouts. On our priority list, the roundabout is there, but it’s not at the top. We only have so much money. We’re facing a big economic cliff the next two years, so we’ve got to conserve our money, and there isn’t anybody else with that kind of fiscal restraint.”