B St. NE again is focus of Quincy council discussion

QUINCY — The current and future status of a section of B Street Northeast, and possible work on A Street Northeast, brought residents and business owners to a public hearing during the Quincy City Council meeting Tuesday.

The block of B Street Northeast between Fifth and Sixth avenues has been a focus of concern for residents and business owners for about a year and a half. A section of B Street Northeast was rebuilt in 2022, including that block, and city engineer Ariel Belino said that block did not meet the requirements for its designation in city code. It should be wider to meet code, Belino said, and because it’s not it requires a variance. A public hearing was required before the variance could be granted.

Public Works Director Carl Worley said after the meeting the public hearing and the variance have been discussed since last year. 

Rob Soul, who owns a business on B Street Northeast, said he thought one of the preliminary steps before the public hearing was going to be a meeting of the city’s public works committee. Soul has repeatedly expressed concern about the design of that block of B Street Northeast and said he asked to be invited to the public works committee meeting. 

That meeting never happened, Soul said. Worley said Soul was correct and it didn’t, because the committee had other projects it was working on. In addition, the discussion will include work on A Street Northeast, which is under consideration as a truck route. Worley said the project needs more analysis, which hasn’t been done yet.

In answer to a question from Council Member Dave Dormaier, Worley said the need to figure out what needs to be done is the reason money allocated in the 2023 budget to address problems along B Street Northeast and A Street Northeast hasn’t been spent. 

Soul said he thought the city had done an inadequate job of notifying residents or business owners along the street before construction started. There was an open house on the project prior to design, but Soul said one of the advertisements had the wrong address for the proposed project.

The one-block section of B Street has sidewalks, a walking path, and a surface stormwater drain system. Worley said the design reflected a response to complaints city officials had received about the street. 

Soul said his research showed relatively few official complaints about B Street and that the design didn’t fix any of the concerns. He said in his opinion the council had done an inadequate job of overseeing the project and in fact was doing an inadequate job of oversight in general. The fact the variance request followed the construction, which would not be allowed for Quincy citizens, was what he called a ‘bad look.'”

A B Street resident said the layout made it very difficult for him to use his property in certain circumstances. It’s nearly impossible to find a parking spot for family cars when the driveway is needed for something else, he said.

Another resident who owns a trucking firm said her family ended up buying additional adjoining land to accommodate their truck. She said she agreed with Soul that the design wasn’t working as intended. 

In response to a question from council member Andrew Royer, Worley said city officials still are looking at changes to A Street Northeast and B Street Northeast. 

“I thank you guys for all coming down,” council member Jeff Spence told the audience. “I appreciate your input, and hopefully we can work on a resolution and see what we can do.”

Council members Dylan Kling and Tom Harris said they too appreciated citizens coming to the council meeting with their concerns. 

“I have yet to be in a meeting, for what this is worth, where I don’t feel like the consensus is to find solutions and to do the right thing,” Royer said.

“It was good to hear your (voices) and your concerns about the street. I do think we’ll get a resolution that matches code. At least that’s my goal up here,” Dormaier said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.