Star-Journbal Editor
A controversial plan that would have allowed Emprise Bank to build a customer drive-through in the heart of downtown Hillsboro was unanimously rejected by the city council this past Tuesday.
Council members tried to find some way to allow the bank to build a new drive-through without taking seven parking slots from downtown Main Street, including three slots from the business next door.
They had considered granting an exception to accepted industry traffic engineering standards, but the city's own consulting engineer warned that a shrunken-down traffic design might lead to accidents for which the city could be found liable.
The consultant's warning, and the deluge of phone calls to the council members from citizens against the plan made the 4-0 vote a foregone conclusion; and an easier pill to swallow for bank president Bob Watson, who thanked the council for its painstaking deliberations.
Watson had said all along that Emprise would not fight a no vote by the council.
"Obviously we're disappointed with the decision, but I know it was a difficult decision," Watson said. "There were very valid points both ways. I appreciate all the time that was spent studying the issue and respect the decision. So I guess we'll go back to the drawing board and see if we can come up with Plan B."
The bank, built in 1975 on the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Main, has a drive-through on the east side of the building that exits onto Grand Avenue.
But Watson told the council that his banking customers need a new drive-through that includes a depository into which they can drop money bags without leaving their vehicles. Three cars lined up for banking at the present window forces the third car to block the alley, which is unacceptable, he added.
The drive-through plan had been under close scrutiny, even after the Hillsboro Planning Commission voted 4-2 to recommend the project's approval by the city council.
Two planning commission members who voted against the proposal, chairman Gaylord Goertzen and member Kevin Suderman, appeared at the Nov. 7 council meeting to reiterate their concerns about safety issues, traffic issues, and the loss of parking spaces in front of Prudent Tours.
Prudent Tours owner Hank Wiebe, who was away on business Nov. 7 and unable to attend the meeting, sent a letter to the council, asking the city to deny the proposal.
Officially, the council's vote this past Tuesday was on a motion to deny the planning commission's recommendation of the project.
Any alternative proposals from the bank also would need to be approved by the planning commission before coming to the council.
"Anything that is suggested would have its own set of problems to work through," said city administrator Steve Garrett. "The ball is in Bob's court if he wants to come back with another plan."
The council's concern over liability to the city, and the public outcry, helped avoid a conflict between Watson and Mayor Delores Dalke, who disagreed sharply that the drive-through was good for downtown.
Dalke had said she was against the drive-through, which would have required the demolition of a bank-owned building at 106 N. Main Street and created a 25-foot wide gap in the continuous buildings downtown.
The bank has submitted a request for a demolition permit to raze the old building. Watson has indicated that regardless of the vote on the drive-through, the building will be torn down someday.
Watson told the council Tuesday that the bank had no intention of hurting downtown, or a downtown business.
"Our position has always been that we would like to do it to improve service to our bank," Watson said. "It's also been that we certainly didn't want to do something to harm a fellow business on Main Street.
"There are positives to it as an investment on Main Street; it increases the tax base, it serves a pretty significant number of people, etc., etc. But it does affect parking, I can't argue that."
In the discussion prior to the vote, council member Matt Hiebert said it wouldn't be smart to ignore the expertise of the city's consultant.
"The position you do not want to be in is to be named in a lawsuit going against your own experts," Hiebert said.
Council member Byron McCarty said he couldn't remember getting more calls on an issue. "I got more calls on this; even more than the liquor store," he said.
Hiebert agreed, adding, "I've had more comments and people talk to me on this than in the six years I've been on the council."
The mayor, who would vote only in the event of a tie, said, "In all the years I've been in city government, there's never been an issue that I got as many calls on as I did on this one."
In thanking the council after the vote, a gracious and up-beat bank president indicated that he never expected his plans to build a better drive-through for his customers to become such a big issue.
"It was a learning experience, let's put it that way," Watson said.
