By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
VICTORIA — The Ellis County Commission met with the Victoria City Council in a special meeting Monday to discuss a number of issues facing the city and the county.
Among the topics for discussion was the condition of Cathedral Street in Victoria. The crown in the middle of the street is very noticeable and is getting worse. The west side of the roadway appears to be sinking, which is causing an increase in the crown.
Leroy Schmidtberger, Council President, said they have been asking for quite some time for someone to look into the roadway and that the crown “just keeps getting worse, worse and worse.” He said the worst area is from approximately Sixth Street north.
According to Victoria city officials, an engineering study was conducted approximately eight year ago and it was unable to determine why the street was settling.
County Commissioner Dean Haselhorst said they are aware of the issue with the road and it was one of the county roads the commission looked at during its annual road tour earlier this year. Haselhorst estimated it was a 2-foot drop from the center of the street to the curb.
The difference makes it difficult to clear the roadway of snow during the winter months.
County Public Works Director Bill Ring said they need to find out why the west side of the state has settled but, according to officials, they have not received any reports of houses on that side of the street settling.
“If we don’t solve that, we don’t want to put a Band-Aid on something,” he said.
Ring said they can take some core samples of the roadway and a few of the side roads and send those to be examined.
The last overlay was approximately eight years ago, but Ring said they laid a very thin layer as to not increase the crown.
There is also a concern with what utilities run under the roadway. The original water lines from the 1920s and sewer lines from the 1960s run under the road and, if crews work to replace the roads, it would also be cost-effective to replace the utilities. The would not want to tear up a new road if something were to happen to the old lines.
But without knowing the next steps, cost will be an issue. Ring said at the meeting that Kansas Department of Transportation funding has dried up.
“Its not that we don’t want to do something right away, but every little bit is being squeezed out of that stone,” County Commissioner Barb Wasinger said.
Jerry Brungardt, Victoria City Councilman, said if the city of Victoria is going to be responsible for any of the costs of the project, they will have to budget for those in the future.
Ring said they are hoping that things will change in Washington and there will be more funding put back into infrastructure and that money would make its way to the local level.
In other business, the City Council said they are not interested in a so called “3-mile zone” around the city. The 3-mile zone, or extraterritorial jurisdiction, allows governments to have authority over a space beyond their city limits.
Ellis has already stated they want the current boundary to remain the same. The area around Hays will be a topic of discussion with the Hays City Commission and the County Commission meet next Tuesday.
The County Commission reaffirmed to the council they are not planning to cut an ambulance from Victoria. That was brought up in prior years as a possible way to save money but never gained traction. EMS Director Kerry McCue said Monday its vital to the County EMS system.
The two governing bodies also talked about the county giving Railroad Cemetery to the city of Victoria. Those who were killed while working on the railroad are buried in the approximately 5-acre cemetery. The city maintains the property already.
Administrator Smith-Hanes, Clerk Donna Maskus and County Counselor Bill Jeter will work with Victoria officials on transferring the property.
The county commission has already met with the city of Ellis and has a joint meeting planned for next Tuesday with the Hays City Commission.