Image courtesy of Wade Weiss

Two Greene County road replacement projects are happening soon.

County Engineer Wade Weiss says road closures are now in place for the first project to overhaul County Road P-46 from County Road E-18 south to County Road E-26. He notes the other road replacement project is on County Road E-18 from Iowa Highway 144 to the Boone County line, and the road closures will be established late April or early May. Weiss points out that these eight miles will have a thicker road surface with the existing concrete crushed to serve as the sub-base. 

The Greene County Board of Supervisors approved the contractor at their March 10th meeting to Cedar Valley Corporation for $10,348,713 that will be paid for upfront with a bond not to exceed $11.5 million and reimbursed with tax increment financing (TIF) funds from the Urban Renewal Plan. Weiss shares his thoughts on going through the process of utilizing TIF funds for projects like the two road replacements that are scheduled to be done this year.

“Well, it is nice. However, as a taxpayer I’m a little reluctant to give it all the kudos, mostly because we have to incur debt before we can start the project, and that’s just counterintuitive that what I normally do. I like to save money up, do the project, (and) not have debt. But the only way to use this money is to incur debt, which we’re going to be paying interest on money which takes up some of the valuable money we could be spending on the roads. So, we’re still happy that we’re able to get it completed. I think it’s been a real problem area over there. We’re going to get things looking better here shortly.”

The TIF funds were established after several wind turbines were installed in the northeastern portion of the county by MidAmerican Energy.