City administrators frequently find themselves coming across as curmudgeonly.
Mention building an indoor pool or planting trees along downtown sidewalks, and their blood pressures start to climb.
Where some see improved health and safety outcomes, they see a slot machine that never lines up.
Building a community where future generations want to call home requires a flexible yardstick, which sometimes just needs to be thrown in the trash.
Thankfully, that’s what happened Tuesday evening.
Going against current policy, Iola Council members voted unanimously to extend a sidewalk at one of the busiest intersections of town.
We’re not talking about a lot of money. Maybe $5,500.
But for more than a year, it’s been a bone of contention between Council members and administrators.
IT ALL began in July 2024, when homeowners Tristan and Shayla Robinson requested the city install a sidewalk in front of their home at the intersection of Cottonwood and Lincoln.
The intersection is a major thoroughfare and the Robinson property is the only one there that lacks a sidewalk.
Since 1991, the city has had a sidewalk replacement program that requires citizens to shoulder the bulk of the cost. From the get-go, the Robinsons said they could not afford to pay what would be required to lay around 100 feet of sidewalk.
Stacey Fager, superintendent of Iola schools, sent Council members a letter supporting the city install the sidewalk, saying, “I have personally witnessed countless students utilizing Cottonwood Street in absence of a sidewalk in this area, especially in adverse weather conditions, putting both their safety and the safety of vehicle operators at risk.”
As Council member Joel Wicoff asserted Tuesday night, sidewalks aren’t for the homeowners, but for the public.
“I have a sidewalk in front of my house,” but “I don’t walk back and forth on my sidewalk,” Wicoff said.
In Wicoff’s opinion, his sidewalk is for the public and should be regarded as “city infrastructure.”
THE CITY budgets $20,000 annually for sidewalk repair, but the guidelines for its use are so stringent the funds are rarely used.
