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Time to look at other options

There are times when kicking the can down the road can be a wise governmental maneuver. The New Ulm City Council made artful use of the tactic on Tuesday on the issue of what to do to replace the Center Street retaining wall at Hermann Heights Park.

Last week the New Ulm Park and Rec commission sent the the council a recommendation to spend an estimated $584,675 to remove the current Kasota stone retaining wall which is starting to crumble and replace it with a retaining wall system that would match the hillside across Center Street on the Martin Luther College campus. This option was about $300,000 more than the lowest cost option of sloping the hillside and planting it with vegetation.

The council had heard feedback that seems to split over whether economic or aesthetic considerations should take top priority.

At Tuesday’s New Ulm City Council meeting, the council decided to set up a special committee to ponder the situation further and see if there isn’t some other option.

In this case it isn’t a bad idea to study the issue more. There is no pressing need to decide the question immediately, and there could be a solution out there that would create a nice looking hillside that wouldn’t cost a half-million dollars.

It is worth taking the time to look into the possibilities.

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