The mayor and city has been working with Watco to get the railroad crossings repaired within the city. The city was told if they closed one crossing, then the railroad would come in and repair and maintain three others. After various discussions, the council decided on the closure of 5th Street. Closing 5th would get Industrial Road, 6th and 10th Street repaired. Industrial Road alone will cost millions to repair. But then the railroad said, “close another and we can repair three more.” This would just about cover all your crossings in town.
The council couldn’t turn that down. This was a good opportunity to be in line for millions and millions of dollars of upgrades that the city could not pay for, so they voted to close the crossing on 8th Street. By c losing this crossing,it would have made the road a dead end, which was very concerning to business owners on 8th Street.
They sent letters to the council and Mayor Wyatt who says when they received several letters from business owners, they knew they needed to take another look at this decision. The council decided to hold a public hearing so the affected businesses could voice their opinions on the impact of the closure on their businesses. The council decided to rescind their decision to close 8th Street and choose a different street for closing.
In the meeting held on Monday,October21, the council discussed and voted to close the crossing on S econd Street. Even though it was not a unanimous vote, with three council members voting no and four voting yes, the decision has been made that the two closures will be 5thStreetand2ndS treet.
According to Mayor Wyatt, it will take some time before we see the closures and improvements being done. It could take up to 18 months before the work begins and another 18 months for the completion of the work. The railroad will start one crossing improvement and complete it before moving on to the next one.
Once the three improved crossing are complete then one of the two closures will happen.