Accused of ignoring public comment and turning a deaf ear to American Indian concerns, a divided Douglas County Commission stood its ground and moved ahead with its support for finishing the South Lawrence Trafficway through the Baker Wetlands.

During a meeting Wednesday night, Commissioners Bob Johnson and Jere McElhaney approved an interlocal agreement specifying terms for an $8.5 million wetlands mitigation plan designed to account for damage to the wetlands, should the trafficway be built along a 32nd Street alignment.

The agreement shows that the county, Baker University and the Kansas Department of Transportation all want the highway to cut through Baker’s wetlands, and that all three parties will do everything they can to make it happen.

“This is a compromise,” Johnson said, after hearing from more than two dozen people opposing the plan. “We will never, ever get from where we are to where we need to be I’ve heard people talk tonight about (community) healing unless someone is willing to compromise.

“We ought to do the thing that is most palatable to most people.”

Commissioner Charles Jones, who voted against the plan, ripped any thought of building in the wetlands valued by American Indians as culturally and historically sacred.

“These people have suffered enough,” Jones said. “It’s time for us to leave them alone.”

Earlier, Jones likened the actions of Mike Rees, chief counsel for the Kansas Department of Transportation, to those of anti-Semitic people who are quick to dismiss the needs of Jews.

¢ 6News video: Douglas County Commissioners support wetlands compromise¢ County to mull trafficway pact (09-25-02)¢ 6News video report: Commissioners to consider Wetlands mitigation plan¢ Proposed interlocal agreementAttachments:¢ B¢ C¢ D-1¢ D-2¢ D-3¢ E¢ County to move on SLT next week (09-19-2002)¢ Other SLT stories

Rees quickly shot out of his seat, approached the commission bench and pointed an accusatory finger of his own at Jones demanding an apology that wouldn’t come.

“I think you are the poster boy for bigotry,” said Jones, who is Jewish.

The agreement is expected to be delivered to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in time to meet Monday’s deadline for public comments about the project. The corps intends to choose which way the road should go either through the wetlands or along a 42nd Street alignment south of the Wakarusa River.

Corps officials have said they intend to make a decision by year’s end.

Among provisions of the interlocal agreement approved Wednesday night:

31st Street would be removed between Louisiana Street and Haskell Avenue and then rebuilt off the southern edge of the Haskell Indian Nations University campus. The former site of the road would be given to the university, and the new road would be property of the county.

Louisiana and Haskell, between 31st Street and the Wakarusa River, would be relocated to the edges of the would-be-expanded Baker Wetlands. The roads would be built with two lanes of pavement on right of way wide enough to accommodate four lanes.

Baker would receive $5.41 million to build a wetlands education center, buy equipment and hire personnel to care for the wetlands, prepare camping sites, convert farm fields to wetlands and other related costs.

Baker would give KDOT up to 70 acres at the northern end of the wetlands to allow for construction of the trafficway, in exchange for more than 250 acres of farm fields. More would be added with inclusion of several other sites, whose dimensions were not included in the agreement.

Install a new a water line alongside Haskell Avenue to serve Baldwin and Rural Water District No. 4. It would replace a line that cuts through the wetlands.

The agreement could be terminated by any of the three parties involved if the corps doesn’t issue a final decision about the road by Dec. 1. The agreement also could be extended by mutual consent; it would be terminated if the corps selected the 42nd Street route.