Officials from Fremont and Columbus were thrilled when the director of the Nebraska Department of Roads shared news that could move the U.S. Highway 30 expressway project years closer to reality.
Representatives of Fremont, Columbus, Schuyler and Norfolk formed a coalition recently to support completion of the expressway from Schuyler to Fremont and other roads projects after NDOR included U.S. 30 on a 10-year project priority list announced in November.
Four members of the coalition - two each from Fremont and Columbus - met with NDOR Director Monty Fredrickson and his engineering staff last week.
"The surprise when we sat down with Monty Fredrickson and his engineering staff was that right off the bat he said we've decided to make this a totally state-funded project and put no federal dollars toward it," said Ron Tillery, executive director of the Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce.
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Removing federal funds from the picture, Tillery pointed out, also removes federal environmental studies and requirements bogging the project down.
"That, in and of itself, lops about three to five years off the process because those things take time," Tillery said. "That was a big deal."
"The next thing is that it just speeds up the regulatory process of getting whatever permits and approvals are necessary because it's all done on the state level, and the state has already prioritized the project," he said.
Construction is now scheduled for fiscal year 2016. The state is currently in the 2012 fiscal year.
Fremont City Engineer Clark Boschult, Columbus City Administrator Joe Mangiamelli and Dennis Hirschbrunner, a Columbus engineer who sits on the Columbus Chamber of Commerce transportation committee, also attended the meeting.
Tillery said it was the first time any of them heard the state say the project would not be tied to federal funds.
"One of the reasons is they now have that state revenue source coming from LB84," Tillery said.
Passed by the Legislature in May, LB84 designates for roads projects a quarter of one cent of the existing 5 1/2 cent sales tax.
"With that predicted revenue stream," Tillery said, "they're able to accelerate the completion of a lot of projects. Some of them still have federal money in them, but they were far enough along that they're going to apply some of these LB84 funds into them to complete them, and that clears the deck, so to speak, for our project."
The coalition representatives actually went to Fredrickson's office hoping to discuss state and federal funding requirements for the estimated $110.3 million project.
"We were concerned that the uncertainties surrounding the federal funding stream of dollars, and all of the other competing priorities out there, wouldn't get Highway 30 completed for another 15 to 18 years, so we were considering a whole range of options as a region as to how we could influence the process," Tillery said.
"Our goal now shifts into making sure that we preserve that funding stream through LB84," he said. "Preservation of that funding is a top priority for the community in order to see that project completed. If those funds went away, I can't speculate as to what's going to happen, but if they have to revert back to a federally funded model, that just slows everything down."
"We haven't met as a group since we had this meeting with NDOR, but we'll meet again soon and talk about what our options are," Tillery said.
Tillery said his understanding is that NDOR hasn't finalized a route for U.S. 30 yet.
Dodge County Supervisors on Wednesday talked about the importance of coordinating U.S. 30 planning with a proposed Fremont area dike project.
Chairman Bob Missel said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "got a little sidestepped" from the dike project due to flooding along the Missouri River this year, "but the project's back on the table and we should be hearing from them early in 2012 to get back to the planning process."
That issue did come up in the meeting with Fredrickson, Tillery told the Tribune, "and that is part of the project, they are coordinating with the Corps."
