LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, July 21, 2006 7:00 pm
Lincoln’s Public Works director has his suspicions why some City Council members have proposed eliminating the city traffic engineer’s job.
In Karl Fredrickson’s opinion, it has nothing to do with the money ($126,000 in annual salary and benefits) and everything to do with the man who fills the post.
“Councilman (Jonathan) Cook does not like Randy Hoskins,” Fredrickson said.
He said Cook has concluded that Hoskins is out to widen every street in Lincoln, including 27th Street. Therefore, he doesn’t like Hoskins, and he’s told him — Fredrickson — as much, the Public Works director said.
Cook admits he hasn’t seen eye to eye with Hoskins on more than one occasion. But he’s quick to defend the proposed cut of Hoskins’ position, saying the Public Works Department has been inflexible and needs restructuring.
“I think that we’ve had some problems that resulted in decisions that were bad for business and bad for neighborhoods, and we need to address these. I think this move is in the right direction,” Cook said.
He offered as examples:
n Information Technology Inc., a high-tech Lincoln company, delayed a multi-million-dollar expansion due to concerns about future road work the city was planning near its headquarters.
n The city has proposed removing some parking along A Street through the Near South neighborhood, despite concerns expressed by Trinity United Methodist Church at 16th and A streets. The church could have added more parking on its own, but in the interim has voted to move to southeast Lincoln, Cook said.
“That kind of inflexibility from the Public Works Department led to that decision, and that could have been avoided and should have been avoided,” Cook said.
The Rev. Jim Keyser, Trinity’s pastor, said Saturday that the proposed elimination of the A Street parking was a not a factor in the congregation’s decision to move to 56th Street and Pine Lake Road.
n Then there’s 27th Street.
About 10 years ago, Cook served on a Traffic Congestion Management Task Force that established a policy favoring two lanes plus a turn lane when improving core arterial streets. He said it has been an important policy since, but the traffic engineer doesn’t seem to like it.
“That probably created friction.”
Hoskins said that when discussions began on the city’s long-range transportation plan, he proposed having everything on the table, in an attempt to respond to the failed street bond issue of 2004. According to Hoskins, some voters said they opposed the bond issue because it didn’t look at arterial streets.
But some City Council members didn’t want an open discussion, Hoskins said.
“I was not advocating necessarily we needed to go out and widen every street in town,” Hoskins said. “But I think the community voice should be heard, and I think that dialogue needed to take place.”
In the end, Cook said, the budget-cutting proposal is about looking at the department’s structure — as the council has done in other departments — and about achieving long-term savings and finding lower-cost choices.
“There are a lot of ways of improving traffic flow that cost less,” he said. “I don’t think we need this particular position for that.”
Councilman Dan Marvin said he didn’t like voting to cut anyone’s position. Firing people isn’t fun, he said.
But there are a variety of levels of city management that need to be consolidated, he said.
Councilman Jon Camp said it makes it difficult to cut funds when there’s a face to it, but he’s trying to find $3 million in cuts.
If Fredrickson came forward with other options, maybe deferring equipment or materials, he said he would consider it.
“We’re not here to strip out their heart and soul,” Camp said.
But, he asked, if there’s less money to build roads, why does the city need engineers to build them?
Fredrickson said he didn’t appreciate how the budget proposal was handled, which he said was more like an auction than city government. At the meeting, he had 10 minutes to try to talk council members out of it. But he’ll keep trying.
If it’s about Hoskins’ performance, council members should talk to him or the mayor about it, he said.
He doubts the move would save the city money in the long run. Public Works may need to hire a consultant to do the work now done by Hoskins, or meetings with developers just won’t get done as quickly, he said. And time is money.
If Hoskins stays and keeps working to move traffic more efficiently and safely, Fredrickson said, it could mean a five-minute quicker commute and save motorists time and gas money.
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.