Sidewalks come to question
By Michael Johnson, Editor
Underwood has been awarded a grant for $196,000 to add and improve sidewalks around town leading to the school. Whether that money can be used was decided Tuesday night after the printing deadline. A group of citizens brought some support for the Safe Routes to Schools proposal on May 2 along with the planner of the proposal, Becky Bowen. Dave Thompson of Toman Engineering visited with city commissioners about the updated version of the routes since the last meeting over a month ago. Before they made a decision on approving the new sidewalks they asked that there be another community meeting first. The community meeting was held Tuesday night. Bowen described the first phase of the route to the commissioners, who said that for them to make a decision they wanted to hold another community meeting. Bowen held one community meeting a couple months ago and had mostly opposition to the idea. Much of the opposition was from residents who did not have a sidewalk on their property and did not want their shrubs removed to make way; they did not want to have to maintain the sidewalk once in place; and they felt it would not be utilized in that location.
