Baldwin City to begin work on renovating downtown

Election results

Baldwin City voters chose a mixed bag of new and old for city council and school board positions in the April 3 general election, with a heavy dose of returning incumbents.

Incumbent City Council members Tony Brown and Ted Brecheisen Jr. return to office, as does Ken Wagner after two years off. Brown was the leading vote-winner with 288, Wagner was second with 249, and Brecheisen had 243. Incumbent Nancy Brown, with 218 votes, lost her bid for re-election. Kenny Niehoff was fifth with 198 votes, and Jennifer Hayes had 121.

In the contested school board race for the at-large position seven seat, newcomer Joshua Mihesuah defeated opponent Teresa Arnold, a longtime community member, 402 to 320. Incumbents running unopposed and regaining their spots on the board were Alison Bauer (601), Blaine Cone (571) and Scott Lauridsen (557).Those choices were made by nearly 16 percent of Baldwin’s registered voters, according to Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew, who called the turnout about average.

“You always want higher turnout,” Shew said. “I think what we saw was we didn’t have a lot of issues to bring people out. Something wasn’t connecting to get people to the polls.

“You could see that throughout the county, because it was precinct by precinct,” he said.

– The Baldwin Signal

Baldwin ? If all goes as planned by this time next year, Baldwin City’s downtown will have a new, fresh look.

Sidewalks, curbs and gutters will have been replaced, and access to downtown buildings for people with disabilities will be improved. The current sidewalks were built in the 1960s and are in disrepair. There also will be new streetlights with an early-20th-century-period look.

Work is supposed to begin by the first part of June, City Administrator Jeff Dingman said.

“We’ll have to build in a time when they (contractors) can work around a couple of weeks in October for the Maple Leaf Festival,” Dingman said, referring to the city’s popular fall crafts festival.

The downtown project is estimated to cost $2.02 million. It is funded with a transportation enhancement grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation. KDOT will pay 80 percent of the “streetscape” costs, with Baldwin City coming up with 20 percent.

The work can’t start soon enough for Mayor Gary Walbridge.

“It’s something that has been on the table a couple of years now, and it’s moving forward,” he said.

The city also plans to remove waterlines under the brick streets and replace them with new lines under sidewalks.

“The brick streets are unique, but those waterlines are old, and it’s hard to keep taking up the bricks and then putting them back in again for repairs (to the waterlines),” Walbridge said “This will make it easier for them to be worked on.”

Adding to the downtown’s renovation will be a new fountain that a group of people working with the Baldwin City Chamber of Commerce will give Baker University for its 150th anniversary celebration. The fountain will be at the northeast corner of High and Eighth streets.

Another project also is under way: the renovation of historic Women’s Bridge, a stone-and-brick bridge that spans Tauy Creek at 11th and High streets. The bridge was built in 1890 at the request of the town’s first female mayor, Lucy Sullivan.

The bridge should be completed by July, Dingman said.

A future project under consideration is a new community center. The city is working with the Baldwin school district in determining the needs for a center, which might include an indoor swimming pool, gym, walking track and other facilities. The school district is studying facility improvements it needs.

“That’s a ways off,” Dingman said of a new community center. “Trying to do too much of one thing might not let us do any of it.”