By Thereasa Rasmussen
The answer is yes, a new traffic light will be going up at the intersection of Main Street and Highway 95. When, is the question now. Mayor Randy Hibberd announced at Monday’s City Council meeting that Weiser is on the list for receiving that new traffic light, but it is not scheduled to happen until 2029.
Weiser City Police Chief Carl Smith commented on the intersection at the council meeting stating, “That is probably the most dangerous intersection we have in the city of Weiser. That is where we have the majority of our accidents. We do have crosswalks there, but it is a four lane road and we have had pedestrian accidents where traffic couldn’t see that someone was actually crossing because other vehicles were stopped and they were blinded by that vehicle. It does need to be addressed sooner rather than later if possible.”
Mayor Hibberd asked for input from the board on what they thought about writing a letter of intent to ITD stating that the City of Weiser would possibly help fund the project if the installation of the new traffic light could be moved up to a closer date. Mayor Hibbered shared that ITD will be fully funding the traffic light project in 2029, but indicated that if the City of Weiser would help fund the project the date could be moved up to 2026. Council Member Larry Hogg asked Mayor Hibbered if he knew what the cost would be and Mayor Hibbered responded stating, “That would be up to you (the City Council). What dollar amount is it worth to move it forward? At this point, if I understand correctly, it would cost a little over a million dollars to be put in. The electrical department, we can justify it coming out of there, does have the funds to use for a project of this type. I was thinking of the neighborhood of $200,000 to $250,000. Is that worth moving it up three years?”
Council Member Layna Hafer shared her concerns about the letter of intent, “The struggle I am having with it is, is it a formal commitment that bumps other projects or is it something that would be revisited every year? If that’s the case can we re-summit it each year with the existing council? Because you (Mayor Hibbered) could have different council members and in two years can say they’re not going to pay anything.” Questions on whether or not they would be legally obligated once the letter was received by IDT were asked, but Mayor Hibbered believed they would not be held legally to the agreement if later on the City Council at the time decided not to move forward with helping to fund the project. That the project would simply be set back to the original scheduled date in 2029. Council Member Hafer recommended that Mayor Hibberd bring a draft of what that letter of intent would look like to the next City Council meeting so that board members could look at it and decide whether or not to proceed with a letter of intent. Council Member Hogg agreed stating, “I agree with Layna. We need to make sure we are not making a commitment that we shouldn’t be, but I think it’s worth pursuing.” Mayor Hibberd agreed to the recommendation.
