You need to Act to Stop Them!

At the June 10, 2008 board meeting, Larry Jeddeloh speaking on behalf of his own business and thirteen business on old Hwy 60 (2nd Ave.) requested the supervisors put lighting along the Highway 60 Expressway, south interchange into Sibley. It was stressed that the city and county need to work together on this issue. Better signage was also suggested. The supervisors were all in agreement that lighting is important and asked that an estimate of the cost be presented at a future meeting.

At an October 2010, meeting ten lights are proposed at a cost to the rural taxpayer only, of approximately $44,000. The county would pay for the lights, poles, wire, connectors, etc., with the City of Sibley contributing installation cost. Further, the monthly cost of electricity/maintenance for these 10 lights would be at the expense of the rural taxpayer, only. County Engineer, Tom Snyder had no figures as to the monthly cost.

We contacted the DOT engineers in Sioux City and they know of no safety issues that would require such lights.

Why are the rural taxpayers being asked to pay for purchasing and the operating costs of ten streetlights which will only benefit a few Sibley businesses? Worse, only four of the businesses have evening hours, anyway.

If we start with Sibley, are the rural taxpayers next going to have to run streetlights off major highways into Ashton? Melvin? Ocheyedan? Harris?

In the recent discussion, Supervisor Pedley (who might have a conflict of interest in this vote with his movie theatre) said this was an economic development project. If so, why wasn’t Kirk Grau (County economic director) there for this request?

The General Fund of the county isn’t able to fund this light project because of a limited fund balance and they are now committed to paying back the General Supplemental Fund for a new ambulance which has to be paid back by June 30, 2011.

The secondary roads budget is faced with double digit increases for the cost of goods used to maintain and up-grade our present road system. We must prioritize the use of our road dollars.

Summarizing – the city of Sibley has no funds and the county’s general fund is committed to the ambulance, so that leaves the rural taxpayer to pay for this project out of their secondary road budget.

Call the following supervisors and tell them to vote NO on the lighting project. If the city of Sibley wants these lights, they can get an easement from the county and pay for them themselves.

Darwin Beltman 758-3788, Bill Imhoff 724-6175, Mike Schulte 754-3925, Larry Pedley 754-2309, and Phil Bootsma 724-6260

www.OsceolaCountyTaxpayers.org
Ph 754-4099
Kevin Wolfswinkel, President