Rettig doesn’t want Newport in county’s road plan

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors Thursday will hold its annual discussion on the county's five-year road plan.

With the death of Supervisor Larry Meyers last September, some people may be wondering what this means for the controversial Newport Road project, for which he provided the swing vote.

The quick answer is, apparently: Nothing. Janelle Rettig, who replaced Meyers on the board, said she doubts Newport will come up for a while.

“I'm for scenic roads, and I would have voted how Larry voted,” she said.

Some background:

Dating back at least 10 years, many residents of the Newport Road area north of Iowa City have opposed the county's plans to widen and otherwise upgrade Newport and Prairie du Chien roads. They fear making changes would encourage development and ruin the area's rural flavor.

And the residents have been successful.

In 2006, the supervisors voted 3-2 to include the project in the county's five-year road plan. Meyers ran for supervisor later that same year, and his opposition to the plan carried him to victory. At one of his first supervisor meetings, Meyers' vote helped overturn that previous decision and remove the project from the five-year road plan.

The road plan is revisited annually. The makeup of the Board of Supervisors had not changed since 2006, until Meyers' death, and Newport Road has stayed out of the plan since then.

Rettig said she believes the road will have to be resurfaced at some point, but she said she believes straightening the road, widening it and removing some trees, as the plan called for, would only encourage people to drive faster and make the road more unsafe.