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Editorial: Deep breath ... and dive into 2017
Op-Ed · January 12, 2017
On the national stage, we will next Friday see the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
We will also see Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.
And, here in Iowa, Republicans will assume majorities in the state House and Senate.
We’ll see if Gov. Terry Branstad is, indeed, confirmed as ambassador to China in the Trump administration. If that happens, Iowa will see its first woman governor, a Republican, as Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds moves into Terrace Hill.
Locally, the city and school approved a controversial measure to place a police officer in the schools on a regular basis, a move this newspaper endorsed, but it constituted probably the biggest shift in how this community perceives itself.
Further, West Branch Community Schools will on Feb. 7 ask voters for $19.11 million to build two new additions in an effort to absorb the pupils housed at West Branch Middle School in an overall $20 million to $21 million effort to streamline education, update facilities and prepare for expected growth.
And in the not-too-distant future, the City of West Branch is aiming for a $5 million referendum regarding the proposed 37,000-square-foot recreation center. That is meant to accompany the voter-approved work planned for this summer, preparing the 18-acre plot of land at Pedersen Valley with ball fields, a concession stand, bleachers, a trail, playground equipment and parking lots.
These two measures will require property owners to consider if they can afford just one or both of the projects. We can’t help but wonder if one will draw votes from the other.
However, there were no city council nor school board elections, so no major shifts in political power occurred here.
That said, let us take a look at what 2017 offers, and what we hope to see happen.
• Recreation center — Voters in November 2015 approved $4 million to get four parks improved, with $3 million to go toward Pedersen Valley. In 2016, the city got some of the work done, or started, at three of the parks — Beranek, Lions Field and Wapsi Creek — but only addressed designing the grounds at Pedersen Valley, the site of the proposed recreation center. That means the city did not spend a lot of time on the recreation center building itself.
The comprehensive plan is just a guide, and the city council is not required to follow it. However, the comp plan calls on 30 to 80 acres of land for a community-recreation-senior center and sports complex, and Pedersen Valley offers less than 20 acres. We think the city needs to seriously consider finding a different location for a recreation center and sports complex, especially since they hope such a facility may one day include a library and possibly a banquet hall.
This is a tough decision for the city to make, but keep in mind that the city did not own the Pedersen Valley property when the council approved its comprehensive plan.
This does not mean abandoning Pedersen Valley, since the west end of town still needs more in the way of parks than Lions Field offers. By removing the recreation center and other related buildings, the city can easily fit four ball fields — which was in the original plan — a trail, concession stands, parking and playground equipment.
We know the next question coming: Where will the city find 30 to 80 acres? We don’t know what is feasible for such a project, but the first place to consider just might be the former Fox Run, or Cedars Edge, golf course, which has about 80 acres.
• School facilities plan — The next few weeks leading up to the Feb. 7 vote will have us focusing on just one thing: The $19.11 million referendum, which, if approved by voters, will cover the majority of the $20 million to $21 million additions at Hoover Elementary and West Branch High School.
That referendum needs 60 percent to pass on both questions — raising the property tax rate from $2.70 to $3.50 per $1,000 assessed valuation and asking to borrow the $19.11 million.
The school board has aggressively pushed out information to the public on this project, hosting information sessions at just about every public school event, taking the drawings around town, producing videos and mailings, and agreeing to a Q&A series with this newspaper. As of the date of this newspaper, there are 29 days left for voters to take in all the information and review their own circumstances and budgets.
That is not a lot of time to reach everyone in town, yet we hope everyone will make the time to consider this issue carefully, but quickly.
• Acciona — Another year, and the assembly plant remains closed. Now owned by Nordex but still operating under the Acciona Windpower name, the West Branch plant still operates only a sales crew and some technicians. A federal lawsuit between it and the City of West Branch may or may not have anything to do with that. The city last month argued that a judge should reinstate its authority to decide when to pay Tax Increment Financing rebates to the wind turbine plant. We hope 2017 will see that lawsuit resolved.
On another note, the five-year phase-out of the wind energy tax credit could mean some wind farms going in prior to the tax credit’s expiration. We’ll see if that helps reopen the local plant.
• Wastewater treatment plant — It’s been about nine years since the Environmental Protection Agency said it would issue new permits with new ammonia levels for city wastewater discharge. We are OK, for now, not spending what could be millions of dollars on a new water treatment system. However, the danger is that after so many years of hearing nothing, we wonder if the EPA’s permit could come when city dollars are stretched, or that the permit will surprise us with such low levels of acceptable ammonia discharge that the cost for treatment is much higher than expected. We are anxious to see this permit come through in 2017.
• Home building — We hope home-building in Pedersen Valley and Meadows continues, and we are curious to see what kind of reception townhomes off of Hilltop Drive will receive when the matter makes it to the city council. We learned in 2016 that big-time home-building companies would be hard-pressed to construct middle-income, single-families homes here and still make a worthwhile profit. However, townhomes are one way to address the housing shortage in this city. We hope the city council will learn a lot about this proposal this year.
• Bridges — First, we hope to see the pedestrian bridge to West Branch Village get done this summer. In 2016, the city, Iowa Department of Natural Resources and Federal Emergency Management Agency worked out the major issues. It’s time to build.
Second, the College Street bridge — this one will handle cars and trucks — hopefully will see its engineering work completed and possibly go out for bid in 2017, meaning the bridge will get built in 2018. Have FEMA and DNR finished weighing in on this now $2 million bridge?
We’ve seen years like 2016 before, where councils and boards spent heavy amounts of time on planning, followed by a year with more doing. We hope 2017 is one of those “doing” years. We liken it to road construction — nobody cares much for weaving around, leaving early and blocked traffic, but that is necessary to get to the other side, where we can enjoy the finished work. There’s a flip side to that as well: Whether voters will deliver a resounding refusal that kills a project entirely.
We cannot predict that part, though.
Take a deep breath … and dive in.
Editor's note: This editorial was updated Jan. 19 to correct the number of acres in Pedersen Valley park. Also, the editorial was updated to correctly state what kinds of homes are proposed near Hilltop Drive.
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