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Editorial: OK, 2014: How’d it go?
Op-Ed · January 08, 2015


So when we started writing this editorial to review how the community carried out the work of 2014, the weather had not been so bad compared to last year, but we had to reconsider that observation with the snow and cold from earlier this week.


What the new year holds for us weather-wise is something we’ll leave to the Farmer’s Almanac, but let’s take a look at what 2014 sent our way as far as the goals and hopes we set for the community.

• At the beginning of the year, we had hoped to see the city and school work toward expanding the West Branch Public Library on its current site. Mayor Mark Worrell offered to have the city pay for relocating the bus barn to give the library ample space to expand to the north.

The School Board received a committee report that outlined a 15-year facility plan that proposed two key things: 1. Demolishing the current West Branch Middle School and moving those pupils to an expanded West Branch High School, and 2. Relocating the bus barn to land behind the high school.

Considering what was said the previous year, we figured the idea to move the bus barn would motivate the two parties to work toward the plan to expand the library to the north. However, the Library Board felt that demolishing the middle school would mean a decrease in after-school pupil visits at the library enough that the current location was no longer as attractive as it had once been. Instead, the library board suggested building a new library in Pedersen Valley on property purchased by the city for a recreation center.

The Parks & Recreation Commission voted to include a new library in its plans for Pedersen Valley, and the city hosted meetings where architects drew up possible building plans that included a recreation center with a library.

We felt the library board should have provided some data to back up their change of mind, but a city survey found that 73 percent of residents believe it is a good idea to combine the library with the recreation center, with most citing convenience as their primary reason.

• Altorfer Inc. quietly opened its new $4.2 million dealership and slowly moved tractors and other farming equipment into the building and out on the lot. We wish it the best in its first full year in the industrial park.

Very little happened at Acciona Windpower, though. The company shut down its assembly line in March 2013 but still fulfills maintenance agreements and runs its sales department. Acciona landed some big orders in 2014, but no word yet on when or if they might restart the West Branch facility. They have other wind turbine assembly plants in Brazil and Spain.

In March, Acciona brought against the City of West Branch a lawsuit regarding rescinded tax incentives. The city argued that Acciona did not keep enough people employed to earn the tax credits; Acciona stated that they were close enough. After some back-and-forth, a judge set a trial date for September 2015.

• The city continued to work on its sanitary sewer system while waiting for the Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a new wastewater permit. It’s been more than seven years since the city’s wastewater permit expired on Jan. 2, 2008, and the fact that the city does not yet have firm information from the environmental agencies makes other long-term, money-heavy projects difficult. The city only has so much money it can spend, and it has a lot of big-ticket items it wants and needs to do. A new wastewater treatment system could be one of them. The city spent 2014 scoping and repairing or replacing sewer pipes to reduce the amount of water a new system would have to handle, in hopes that the new system might cost less.

• The city continued to build new sidewalks in 2014, and it also received word about two grants to further that effort: $75,000 to build a trail and foot bridge connecting West Branch Village to the Hoover Nature Trail, and either 80 percent or up to $1 million to replace the College Street bridge, which includes a 10-foot-wide pedestrian walkway. The largest section of sidewalk built this past year was the Oliphant Street sidewalk northward from Crestview Court, then turning eastward to North Downey.

• The city in 2014 finished a draft of its capital improvement plan, which we hoped we would see finished. The CIP could appear before the city council later this month or early February, and a public hearing would be held prior to final approval.

• We hoped that the state would work with the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Park Service to develop a mechanism that would allow the state to temporarily fund operation of the Hoover Complex in case of another government shutdown, like the one experienced in October 2013. That didn’t happen, but what did happen is that the U.S. Congress seemed to get the message from voters that it did not take kindly to the shutdown. Twice in 2014 — once in January and a second time in December — there were chances of another shutdown of the 17 percent of the government agencies considered “non-essential,” but Congress pulled out continuing resolutions to avoid them both.

So that’s where 2014 left us. A very busy year, for sure, with a lot of things gearing up.

We are glad for the progress we saw in the community over the past year, and look forward to another year of community leaders tackling the big issues and projects that mold this town.

Here’s to a great 2015!