The Iola City Council welcomed two new faces and said goodbye to three outgoing members Monday evening.
Doug Kerr, Jeremiah Ivy, Mark Peters and incumbent Nich Lohman were sworn in as new members. Kerr will represent Iola’s Ward 1; Peters, who left the Council in April 2024, returns to represent Ward 2; Lohman retains his Ward 3 seat; and Ivy joins Joelle Shallah to represent Ward 4.
The Council also recognized outgoing Josiah D’Albini, Joel Wicoff, and Benedikt Middleton for their service. Mayor Steve French, who was sworn in as Iola’s mayor at the start of Monday’s meeting, recognized each for their service.
That was the easy part. The rest of Monday’s meeting, though, featured a preview of topics that will take up much of the Council’s time and energy this year.
At the top of the list is the rebuild of U.S. 54 through downtown Iola. Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock offered the Council a tentative timeline of the project, which will stretch from just short of State Street all the way to Ohio Street west of Daylight Donuts.
Schinstock said the city plans to begin a digital campaign this week informing the public of the project. Replacing the water line is the first step of construction. Burns & McDonnell, the design engineers for the project, and their contractors are planning to begin construction later this month, beginning on the west end and working east.
Council member Lohman asked Schinstock if downtown businesses should expect interruption of water service with the work, but Schinstock said any outages would be brief. “If it’s two hours, I’d be surprised,” he said. “I wouldn’t foresee much interruption of service.”
THE END product will create a downtown thoroughfare drastically different from its current form, including:
• A fully rebuilt concrete surface and base that is expected to last decades.
• From Sycamore Street east to Kentucky, U.S. 54 will be three lanes, not four, with one lane in each direction and a turning lane in the middle. The extra space will allow crews to grade landscaping down to the curb level. Where that’s not possible, retaining walls will be installed.
• Wide 8-foot sidewalks on both the north and south sides of the highway will be built at curb level. This is funded through a $4.2 million grant from KDOT’s Transportation Alternatives program, awarded to the city in October 2024. Burns & McDonnell applied for the grant on behalf of the city. The program’s goal was to create safer, more walkable communities.
There is no detour planned; throughout the construction process, at least two lanes of traffic will remain open along the current route.
“I’m going to try to keep the public as involved as we can in this project,” said Schinstock. “It’s going to be busy. We’re going to have interruptions of traffic flow once the road construction takes off.”
The waterline portion of the project is expected to be completed in October 2026; Schinstock said he expects the road construction to be completed in the fall of 2027.
FROM THERE, the Council discussed transient vendor license fees.
Current city ordinance, approved in December 2024, includes a two-tiered system for local and out-of-town permits. Iola residents pay $10 for an application fee and a one-year vendor license. Those who live outside of the city can buy a three-day, month, six month, or yearly license, along with the application fee.Those fees range from $25 to $400.
