Tuesday afternoon, Commissioner Mike Burroughs spoke during the County Council’s budget hearing on the decision of the Plymouth City Council to not put the Veterans Parkway Extension Project on the TIF Project List.
He said, “The vote was 5 to 2 against the project and while we have not had an official meeting since that amongst the commissioners, unofficially I will tell you that as far as a couple of us are concerned, I don’t was to speak for Stan. This is a dead project.” Burroughs said they will not pursue going forward to Oak Road, Veterans Parkway will just stay where it’s at.
The commissioner said he was disappointed in their decision. He said, “Personally I don’t feel like obligating the county without the city’s involvement because it all benefits the City of Plymouth.” Burroughs said it doesn’t make sense to indebt the county to continue without the city’s involvement.
Commissioner Burroughs told council members the funds that they had pledged to the project for the preliminary engineering wouldn’t be needed.
Burroughs said INDOT contacted USI two-weeks ago to see if Veterans Parkway was still in the planning stages. He said, “That lets us know that they are still interested in the project.”
City Council members wanted to know what was going to happed on US 30 with the plans to make it a limited access highway. Meaning many intersections will be cut off, and there will be interchanges or overpasses. City Council members wanted to know what was going to happen with Oak and Pioneer Drives and when it was going to happen. Burroughs said, “No one, and I mean no one in this county knows the answer to that question. Without knowing the answers to those questions none of the councilmen who voted it down were going to be in favor of the project even though the county was paying 75% and the city was only paying 25%.”
