Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has added more counties among those included for Meetings were held the first two days of this week concerning an expensive Sioux City project to reconfigure the viaduct that spans along Gordon Drive over the decades-old railways area beneath.
The project will cost more than $150 million, and the estimated starting year is 2028. The current viaduct is almost 90 years old, and transportation officials with the state of Iowa and Sioux City have been discussing possible plans.
Back in 2005 Sioux City was named one of the three cities in the state to be included in the Great Places program. That’s when plans by the Iowa Department of Transportation announced plans to rework the Gordon Drive viaduct.
The Monday meeting involved people coming to hear details about the viaduct possible plans, including one that could build a new one just to the south of the current one.
City Councilwoman Julie Schoenherr told Siouxland Public Media News that she likes the options for reworking the former Stockyards area south of the viaduct, near Cunningham Drive, at the same time.
“The viaduct will be a wonderful igniter to redevelopment and new development in the former Stockyards area,” Schoenherr said.
The Tuesday afternoon meeting involved city officials meeting with nearby potentially impacted business and property owners.
In other news, The University of South Dakota has settled a lawsuit brought by a former employee who alleged that she was called a “whore.”
The Dakota Scout on Tuesday reported that USD and the South Dakota Board of Regents agreed to pay Semehar Ghebrekidan $100,000 – which included back pay and a nearly $25,000 fee to her attorney.
In return, Ghebrekidan agreed to settle the lawsuit and sign a release. Ghebrekidan and USD did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
Ghebrekidan has also been on administrative leave since late February from her city of Sioux City position as an inclusion department employee.
She has retained an attorney related to that city leave. She was the first person to serve in that position created by city leaders in 2021.
Several supporters of Ghebrekidan have spoken out twice in the last several weeks at Sioux City Council meetings.
Mayor Bob Scott said city officials cannot publicly comment regarding confidential personnel matters.
Ghebrekidan joined USD as an international student advisor in June 2018. She came to USD from South Dakota State University, where she worked as a graduate assistant in the diversity, equity and inclusion office, according to her lawsuit.
Additionally, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has added more counties among those included for disaster proclamation status, as the cleanup from tornadoes and severe storms in western and southern Iowa continues.
A preliminary report from the National Weather Service says at least a dozen tornadoes struck Iowa on Friday night. In the small town of Minden, Iowa, just east of Omaha, the storm killed one person and damaged or destroyed 180 houses and businesses in the town with a population of 600.
Minden is located in Pottawattamie County, which was the sole county included in the first disaster proclamation. The additional eight counties include two in southern Siouxland, with Crawford and Harrison counties, plus Mills, Polk, Ringgold, Shelby, Clarke and Union counties.
Disaster proclamation status allows areas to be included in disaster recovery programs.
