From CJonline.com:
Shawnee County Commissioner Shelly Buhler, right, is joined Friday
by four other advocates of the Willard Bridge on N.W. Carlson Road
- Judy Ross, Larry Ross, Gean Schott and Derek Slack
“It’s bigger than an inconvenience,” said Derek Slack, lead pastor at Rossville Christian Church, on Friday morning. “It’s dangerous. It’s everything.”
As the group stood, a large truck, easily several tons over the weight limit, rumbled by overhead.
Waiting game
The county on Jan. 29 reduced the weight limits on Willard Bridge, and the Shawnee County Commission will consider lowering them again Thursday — more in a series of attempts to prolong the life of the 60-year-old bridge as its reconstruction continues to be kicked down the road.
The last time the county reduced the weight limits was in 2007. That same year, the county identified replacing Willard Bridge as its top legislative priority, with county counselor Rich Eckert and public works director Tom Vlach testifying for funding.
Commissioner Kevin Cook brought this up Thursday to illustrate how long replacing the bridge has been an issue for the county. His voice was slightly raised — he seemed passionate, even angry.
But in the next breath, he told Buhler he couldn’t support her motions to add the bridge to the county’s debt just yet: He wants to give state and federal partners more time to respond to their pleas, now eight years old.
Buhler responded, a couple of times, “I respectfully disagree.”
The affected residents don’t express their thoughts so kindly.
“How would they feel if their son, daughter or grandchild had to risk their life to go to school?” Willard city clerk Laura Lord asked the commissioners. “Waiting could cost a life.”
To them, the phrase “monitoring the situation” has become a curse word.
Buhler’s motions — one to add $7 million to the debt and one to fund the bridge instead of a $7 million pool in southwest Topeka — failed without a second.
That silence spoke volumes to the people in northwest Shawnee County.
“If we don’t get other people from other communities in the area, we’re not going to get a bridge,” bridge advocate Lynette Hudson said.
So advocates have taken to social media. They started a Facebook community, already with 784 likes. They are encouraging people to use #WillardBridge on Twitter. At Friday’s Rossville High School basketball games against Riley County, they set up a photobooth, where people could write their thoughts on chalk and get a printout on Willard Bridge photopaper.
“Used to shop on Wanamaker,” one read, referencing people who now do their shopping in Manhattan to avoid the bridge.
“#WillardBridge use to get to school” was another.
Throughout the school that night, from fans in the crowd to the woman taking tickets, everyone was talking about Willard Bridge.
Bridge v. pool
The conversation about the bridge has evolved, even in just the past few weeks.
After the county reduced the weight limits, the focus was on concern for the children — a bus full of students clearly couldn’t cross. How long had it been that way? What about a minivan?
When the commission considered dedicating sales tax money to replace the bridge, conversation manifested into a petition and emailing campaign to show those with votes how important the bridge was to them.
But in the last few days, the conversation has become laced with rage and incredulity.
To many, the issue has become “the bridge against the pool” — an idea likely egged on by Buhler’s motion Thursday, but also corroborated by Commissioner Bob Archer’s statement earlier this month that a pool in southwest Topeka is his Willard Bridge. Archer’s only comment on the issue Thursday was a motion to approve taking on the debt.
If Willard Bridge advocates were frustrated before, now they are irate, indignant.
Many residents who talk about the bridge inject a dose or two of sarcasm into the conversation, trying to find a place for their anger and disbelief.
“A lot of us are going to be slipping, but not in a pool, if this bridge goes down,” said Dean Page, an 87-year-old Rossville resident.
“A pool sounds nice,” Slack said with a wry smile, “but I don’t know if I’ll be able to take the bridge to get there.”
Many will tell you about the metal bars they have purchased for their cars — so they can break out their windows if the bridge goes down while they are driving on it.
“We try to come up with a new joke every day,” Slack said.
Friday’s quip?
“For every $1 million you donate to Willard Bridge, you get a free cup of coffee,” he said with deadpan humor. “It’s more than fair.”
Jokes, yes, but the undercurrent is completely serious: No one gets us. And until they do, we are on our own.
Rallying support
To get that support, Hudson said, they need to make people understand replacing the bridge, estimated at $24.6 million, is about more than tacking on 20 minutes to a drive — people have been doing that for years for fear of the bridge. And that it doesn’t just connect the small township of about 85 people, or even the few cities to the north of it — Rossville, St. Marys, Silver Lake — to Topeka.
It is about farmers who need the bridge to transport their equipment and harvest. Dozens of acres of farmland lay just north of the bridge.
It is about the Rossville and Silver Lake school children who use crosswalks on US-24 highway to and from school. Traffic on the two-lane, nearly shoulderless highway steadily has increased as word of the bridge’s condition spread.
It is about the more than 2,000 people who cross the bridge each day, some to work in Topeka’s hospitals and fire departments, some to shop at the local vendors. Many more use it to connect US-24 and Interstate 70, or vice versa.
“This not just a northwest Shawnee County issue. This is a Shawnee County issue,” Buhler said. “I represent District 1, but when I was elected I promised to make decisions for what is best for the whole of Shawnee County. This bridge is a vital link for Shawnee County residents and commerce in and around northeast Kansas.”
The community only has one representative on the county commission, and they understand why people who don’t live out there might not want their property taxes going to it. Though, when you bring that up, they also question whether more people place the bridge below building a pool in one of the more affluent parts of the county.
Most residents, Buhler included, would rather the cost come from the county-wide sales tax, not from their local property taxes.
But, as the new mantra goes in the northwest corner of the county, “The time is now
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