STEVENS POINT − The city’s Finance Committee on Monday approved amendments to a road construction referendum ordinance that voters approved by a 31-vote margin nearly two and a half years ago. The referendum was spearheaded by southside business owners in opposition to the city’s plans for rebuilding Business 51.
The committee voted 4-1 to send the ordinance amendments to the Common Council. District Eight alderperson Dean Shuda voted no. District Nine alderperson Sam Lang, who is not on the committee, was the only citizen to speak when the committee asked for comments from the public.
The amendments change Subsection 4.18 of the Revised Municipal Code, which was created via direct legislation referendum on the August 2022 primary election ballot. The activist-written ordinance requires the city to hold referenda for road construction projects that cost more than $1 million.
“To go over $1 million now on any kind of project that we have, almost everything we do is over $1 million. Especially for roads, sewers, any public works that we end up doing,” Shaun Morrow, district 11 alderperson, said in the meeting.
“The process that we go through, just like we’re doing now for Business 51, has been years. We’ve had talks, we’ve had listening sessions, we’ve had consultants, we’ve had plans, we’ve had special council meetings on this over and over and over again. Each time that we delay the price keeps going up and up and up,” Morrow said.
In the nine years prior to the ordinance’s creation, the city had spent over $1 million on 14 projects out of 27 total completed.
The approved amendments change the dollar amount of the cost of a project requiring a referendum to $20 million and adds a clause that excludes the cost for the utility portion of the total project cost. Utilities commonly impacted during street reconstruction include pipes or other structures for water service, stormwater and wastewater.
The ordinance amendments come just months before construction on the north section of Business 51 is expected to begin, according to Mayor Mike Wiza. The project was anticipated to cost $48.5 million in 2022 and has undergone extensive review since, including an extra study on the roundabout proposed for the intersection with Fourth Avenue.
The City Council reaffirmed the design of the project, including the roundabout, in March.
“(The ordinance) does make our process slower. We have to have our director of public works come up with projects, in one case, it was a year and a half before we knew what we could do and we had to get it approved,” Wiza said in the meeting.
The Stevens Point Common Council will likely see the ordinance amendments at its next regular meeting, which will be held a day later, Jan. 21, due to observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA TODAY NETWORK – Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Contact him at [email protected].