Cornell City Council; Streets aren’t designed to hold up from heavy truck use
By Ginna Young
Deliveries of goods are essential to keep Cornell businesses going and commerce flowing, but when it comes to parking transport trucks, that’s a different matter. In a few areas of town, semi tractors are parked on city streets that are not designated as a heavy traffic route, so the Cornell City Council addressed the matter at their regular meeting Sept. 7.
After doing some research into the issue, Cornell Police Chief Glenn Rehberg found that semi tractors start at about 10,000 pounds, without the sleeper, and that the city’s ordinance currently on the books, states that anything over 12,000 pounds is prohibited on non-designated streets.
However, there are some places in town that a semi cab can be parked, because it’s in a commercial district.
“The difference is between parking and driving,” said Rehberg.
Those streets that allow for heavy truck traffic are Main street, from Eighth Street to Park Road; Park Road, from State Hwy. 178/64 to Industrial Park Road; Industrial Park Road; Woodside Drive, from Moen Street to Industrial Park Road; and Third Street, from Thomas Street to Bridge Street. State Hwys. 27, 64 and 178, do not fall under the ordinance.
Mayor Mark Larson asked if the ordinance weight limit includes a motorhome or camper, but Rehberg hadn’t looked into that at the time.
“You can’t pick and choose, in my opinion,” said Larson.
Bill Kvapil, council member, agreed, and felt that Cornell needs to enforce no truck traffic or parking, according to the 12,000 pound weight limit.
The exception for the heavy truck traffic on non-designated routes, is in the delivery of commodities to homes or businesses. It also prohibits driving to an operator’s home to park.
Most of the city’s roads are too narrow for parking large trucks, not to mention the wear and tear on the streets. They also cannot park in the lane of traffic.
“That’s not a weight issue, that’s a safety issue,” said Rehberg.
The council agreed they want to think about it, possibly making some changes to the ordinance and for sure, they want to meet with those impacted, and try to find somewhere on city-owned property for them to park and plug in their trucks. The item was passed on to committee.
“The problem I see here, we’ve got working people, trying to make a living and I think we need to accommodate them somehow,” said council president Steve Turany.
Also brought up during the meeting, was that Xcel Energy is developing line route options for the Western Wisconsin Transmission Connection, a new 100-mile long kilovolt line to serve this area of the state. The project begins at the Tremval Substation near Blair, and connects to either an existing or new substation near Eau Claire, terminating at a new substation near either Sheldon or Owen.
Xcel is looking for public input to narrow down the options, before any decisions are made.
Since there were no concerns at a public hearing prior to the regular meeting, the council passed Ordinance 23-4 for a new floodplain. It’s something that is required by the DNR, because Cornell is located along a river.
Members also approved the annual Chippewa County Humane Association contract for $1,681.30, which allows Cornell residents to drop off animals at the society, at no cost to them.
The council also gave their blessing to close Main Street for the annual Homecoming parade Oct. 6, as well as allowing a color run on Main Street the Sunday before that.
