The Madison County Board of Supervisors are making it a priority to work together on the Reunion interchange (phase two) project after accusations of some supervisors working on the project in secrecy and without consulting other board members.
Supervisors came to a head at the end of a recent board meeting, when District 1 Supervisor Sheila Jones made a motion for District 3 Supervisor Gerald Steen to step down as the head of the Reunion interchange project.
The second part of Jones’ motion called for District 2 Supervisor Trey Baxter to step in as head.
“I’ll second that motion,” Baxter said. “For one, one side of the interchange is in my district, and, two, the nature in which this thing’s been handled so far — veiled in secrecy — I think the public needs to be better informed with what’s happening, and I think I can do a good job with that…”
District 5 Supervisor Paul Griffin offered a substitute motion that everyone work together without a committee being necessary, at the advice of board attorney Katie Bryant Snell.
“I think some work’s been done already by some supervisors. If we’re all able to lobby, I think we’ll get a lot more accomplished,” Griffin said.
Steen also gave a report during the meeting, saying that Neel-Schaffer engineers have been assigned to create a summary of the project, although Baxter, Griffin and Jones all cut in saying they had not heard this information before Steen’s update.
“At this point, we’re asking Neel Schaffer to do it. They have been involved with the study. They did the study (of South Madison County traffic in 2016) for us. They understand what the process is. We’re hoping to have (the summary completed) in the next two weeks. They’re hadn’t been any secrecy.”
“I don’t think you can say that,” Jones fired back. “This is the first time I’ve heard of Neel-Schaffer working on it. That’s the problem with this board: We have a transparency issue… It’s embarrassing…”
District 4 Supervisor David Bishop and board president calmed the storm, stating the board needed to work together on the Reunion interchange, which should be a top priority to help decongest traffic in the Gluckstadt and south-Madison County area.
“We just need to, as a board, make sure it’s the top priority of the county for transportation, economic development, whatever. That being said, I hope we all get on board with this thing, and everybody gets involved with it, because we have to do this together. That shows unity in this county… We’ve had problems with (transparency) from all sides, not just one or two… The county needs this and we all need to be involved in it.”
