The Ames City Council voted 5-1, with Ward 2 Rep. Tim Gartin opposing, to seek bids to remove all 16 downtown brick piers and if no adequate bids are received, the piers will be demolished.
The decision comes following the Ames Public Art Commission vote for the piers’ removal due to accessibility reasons. According to city documents, in June, the council voted to deaccession the 32 reliefs and destroy the 16 piers. In November, the council put the decision to remove the piers on Tuesday’s agenda because of community feedback.
The commission’s chair, Kyle Hauswirth, began the discussion by telling the council that it was his wedding anniversary, but he was in attendance for the city council meeting because of the importance of this issue.
“I would ask the council to uphold their previous decision to proceed with the deaccession and removal of the piers to make downtown Ames more accessible and available to everyone,” Hauswirth said.
Fifteen of the piers were installed in 1999 and the artist behind the structure, David Dahlquist, who helped design the High Trestle Trail Bridge, told the Ames Tribune in June that the city did not contact him about their decision or preservation efforts.
Vice Chair of the commission Candace Zwank told the council that they should follow the commission’s recommendation “even if one person can’t safely converse.”
“I had an experience specifically with the piers on 5th and Kellogg,” Zwank, who sometimes uses a walker, said Tuesday. “During the winter, it was icy and snowy and I wasn’t able to get my walker across and I was faced with falling forward into a pier – because it’s right in the middle of the walking intersection – or backward into the street.”
Gartin said the amount of public input has changed his mind on the issue from how he originally voted in June.
“I remember what it was like not to have them but people have obviously become accustomed and really enjoy them,” Gartin said. “I think given what we have, the concerns of the few versus the enjoyment of many, I would like to see the pillars remain.”
At-Large Rep. Amber Corrieri said she did not believe the amount of input is “indicative of how the entire community feels.”
“I am a little uncomfortable with the fact that we’re dismissing people’s real and actual mobility experiences with this and placing a higher value on people like them and are accustomed to them,” Corrieri said.
Ward 1 Rep. Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen said as an able-bodied person it would be easy to move out of the way of the pier but that this is about accessibility and not about a hazard.
“We should think about the people who have the most difficulty traversing the area and trying to make it more accessible for them,” Beatty-Hansen said.
Gartin said the council was not following due process in changing the infrastructure.
“We have zero evidence of any kind of problems – for something has been there for 25 years – and we’ve had more input on this issue than anything else this year,” Gartin said.
At-Large Rep. Anita Rollins said the city had followed due process on this issue.
“We have a group that is responsible for the commissioning and decommissioning of art,” Rollins said. “They studied the issue, made a recommendation, checked with Ames Main Street to make sure that everyone was on board with that decision and then brought it forward to us to make that final decision.”
In discussing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) aspects of the piers, Ward 3 Rep. Gloria Betcher said while they currently meet ADA standards, the city should not set those standards as the maximum for the future.
“It seems to me that as we’re moving forward Walk Bike Roll and trying to make the city more accessible, we should be viewing ADA compliance as a minimum as opposed to a maximum,” Betcher said.
Gartin responded by asking if the council was creating a new standard for accessibility in Ames.
“So tonight, the council is going to say, ‘No, the ADA is not good enough; we’re gonna have a new standard?’” Gartin asked. “This is a challenge. What do we tell our staff or engineers that the ADA is not sufficient.”
Rollins said the city still values what is on the piers in attempting to preserve the reliefs. However, Assistant City Manager Brian Phillips said if the city receives no reasonably priced quotes to preserve the piers, they will demolish them without returning the issue to the council.
Ames Mayor John Haila said he believed the city would have difficulty finding someone willing to preserve them and City Manager Steve Schainker said even if they have a feasible bid, they could still be damaged in their removal.
