Hintgen School neighbors call La Crosse city leaders to protest recent decision to let sidewalks be built near their homes

Homeowners in one part of La Crosse are not happy with City Hall, for authorizing sidewalks on blocks where they don’t exist now.

Last week, the city council defeated a plan to stop development of sidewalks in an area near Hintgen Elementary School, clearing the way for sidewalks to be built.

That vote has led people living near Hintgen Elementary School to call District 1 council member Erin Goggin, to see if the decision could be changed.

Goggin said on WIZM’s La Crosse Talk that those neighbors signed petitions overwhelmingly opposing sidewalks near their homes. She added that the city should, instead, focus on fixing walks that are already built.

“I just feel that right now, when you drive around the city of La Crosse, there are enough sidewalks that need to be repaired or replaced for safety that we should work on first,” Goggin said.

Goggin added that the sidewalk issue is still alive, because homeowners wonder why the council voted the way it did.

“When (opposition is) overwhelming like that,” she said, “I just don’t understand why we, as a council, think we know more than the neighborhood.”

The April 11 council vote was 8-5 against a plan to halt sidewalk construction in an area between 27th and 29th Streets.

Days before the council vote, La Crosse Mayor Mitch Reynolds weighed in on the plan during La Crosse Talk PM.

“ People have gotten used to this idea of a city right of way, which is publicly owned — owned by all the taxpayers  — as if it’s their own yard,” Reynolds said. “So, do we want that to be the legacy of our city, or do we want to say we’re using that right of way to ensure mobility access for everyone?

“And personally, I think that I’m going to follow along the lines of making sure that we’re ensuring mobility access for everyone and not saying that, ‘Yeah, you can just use that public property as your own because it’s connected to your yard.’”

La Crosse Talk PM airs weekdays at 5:06 p.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.