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GRAND FORKS — City councils in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks are set to have further discussion regarding two proposed bridges, one within the cities and another just south of town, after an agreement for scoping services failed in a 4-3 vote at the most recent Grand Forks City Council meeting.
Just last week, East Grand Forks council members voted in favor of approving the agreement with SRF Consulting Group, Inc. to complete the scoping phase on both bridges, and split the total cost of $151,170 for those services evenly with Grand Forks.
East Grand Forks City Administrator David Murphy said after the Grand Forks council decision on Monday, East Grand Forks council members will need to talk about the next steps. They'll likely do so at a future work session.
Murphy said some Grand Forks council members have shown opposition toward the proposed bridge during previous meetings, but he wasn't sure how council members ultimately would vote.
“At all the meetings we’ve had there’s always been some voicing of opposition, but how pervasive it was we weren’t really sure until the vote came out,” he said.
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Grand Forks City Administrator Todd Feland said further discussion among Grand Forks council members is anticipated to happen at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. Some of the council members who voted "no" during the Nov. 21 meeting said they would be in favor of the agreement if the scoping work was only going toward the Merrifield bridge.
Council member Danny Weigel is one of those council members. While Weigel said that he’s heard support from people on both sides of the river regarding the Merrifield bridge, he hasn’t heard that same support for a bridge directly between the cities. During Monday’s meeting, Weigel said both cities have yet to agree on a location for the bridge.
“It makes sense to put funding to look at some of those things, but what I have not heard from this group or the other group across the river is what we agree on as far as an inter-city bridge,” Weigel said during the meeting. “Everybody has their own opinion and own thoughts, or interpret the data differently on where the best inter-city bridge is. If we can’t come to an agreement on where that should be, why are we putting money into it?”
Murphy said East Grand Forks council members still need to consider the idea of only pursuing the scoping services on the Merrifield bridge, as they haven’t talked about it previously.
The cost share for the consulting services will also need to continue being discussed among council members. In East Grand Forks, council members approved a 50/50 cost split so both cities would pay $75,585. In Grand Forks, a four-way cost split — factoring in both counties — has been proposed. Feland said including the counties into the cost share makes sense because the Merrifield bridge is a county-led project.
Murphy said he has spoken with the Polk County administrator about the cost split, but he’s not aware if county commissioners have discussed it at a commission meeting. The Merrifield bridge project is set to be on the Grand Forks County Commission's agenda during their Dec. 5 meeting.
The possibility of having another joint meeting between both councils is also going to be discussed in the near future according to Murphy. The last time both councils met in a joint meeting to talk about the two bridges was in July.
