Iola City Council members will discuss further Monday whether they wish to permanently remove stop lights from the intersection of U.S. 54 and Buckeye Street.
The lights will be taken down next week to accommodate the removal of a house next door to the Bowlus. It will be placed on a trailer and towed to a lot near Iola Middle School.
Council members noted at their Jan. 11 meeting the primary reason for the lights — to accommodate students walking to the Bowlus Fine Arts Center — is no longer pertinent now that classes aren’t held at the Bowlus.
In order to keep the lights down, the city must follow a number of steps — which may have already been completed, Interim City Administrator Corey Schinstock explained in notes to the Council.
A traffic study is first, and the city may already have cleared that hurdle with a study recently completed by the engineering firm Burns & McDonnell, which is assisting the city with plans to redo U.S. 54 through town.
Along with the traffic study there is also a public input component that requires the traffic signal to be turned to flash or turned off for 90 days, to allow the public to adjust to the change and provide feedback before anything is decided permanently.
With that in mind, keeping the lights down could start the 90-day public input period, Schinstock noted.
The Council will carry the final decision.
ALSO to be discussed Monday is whether the city is in favor of developing an electric vehicle charging station in town.
The station would cost about $3,000 to install and $2,400 annually over the next five years with a company that would oversee the charging stations. The city also would have to dedicate two parking stalls for the unit.
City employees have worked with Thrive Allen County to find a suitable location. Two sites have been targeted, one along Jefferson Avenue on the inside of the courthouse square; the other at the old Iola Area Chamber of Commerce building parking lot at 208 W. Madison Ave.
The appeal is that having the station in Iola could draw electric car owners to town. Because it takes several hours to charge such a vehicle, the motorists would be certain to frequent downtown businesses while they wait, thus generating additional salex tax revenue, Schinstock noted.
The 6 p.m. meeting is in the New Community Building at Riverside Park.
