EudoraNews.com

Eudora City Administrator Cheryl Beatty spoke about last year with the confidence of a soldier celebrating a victory.

At the top of the list for Beatty was the community visioning process, which took place during a series of meetings throughout the year.

“Probably the most exciting thing about 2008 was we heard from the community,” she said

A community survey also was sent out to residents and the overwhelming results were that Eudorans want to see more sidewalks. Beatty said she knew sidewalks would place high on the list of things that needed to be changed, but she didn’t think it would be the top issue.

“Their emphasis was different than we as a staff would’ve put it, so their input was critical and we learned something,” she said.

The community input will go toward making revisions to the community master plan, which will likely be finalized late summer or early fall.

Beatty also said 2008 was a year of pulling together several community projects including wastewater work on the middle interceptor, the downtown beautification project and the TIF district.

While great progress was made on each of those three projects, none of them are completed.

A wastewater study has been initiated and during the next two months, the city council will discuss what the city can afford.

The work on downtown, which mostly was paid for by a grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation, is about 95 percent complete. Sidewalks on the northwestern side of Main Street still must be installed, as well as plantings and asphalt on the 700 block of Main.

Sidewalks might be completed within the next couple of weeks if weather holds. Otherwise, it will be completed in the spring along with the plantings and asphalt.

“That project is going to be a real asset to the community,” Beatty said. “The downtown will finally be identifiable and we’ll be able to soften it a bit with the plantings and the lights and benches. It will be friendlier”

The TIF district, located on east 10th Street was made official, and now all there is to do is wait.

“As soon as the economy comes around, we’ll have a site prepared for business construction,” Beatty said. “We’re frustrated that the economy went bad, but you have to look at that and realize it was out of our control. The only thing we can control is the planning for the future and for when the economy improves.”

The major unresolved issues on the horizon are traffic concerns as a result of deteriorating streets in new and old section of town lawsuits with Douglas County Rural Water District No. 4 and Vanum Construction

But despite those unknowns, Beatty still was hopeful that resolution of the suits and completion of wastewater projects will allow the city to be ready for more growth once the economy corrects.

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