By Nathan Ham
A special meeting of the Boone Town Council will be happening this Thursday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at the Watauga County Administration Building in Boone.
The purpose of the meeting will be to allow for town council members and local officials to sit down with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and discuss changes that could be made to the proposed Highway 105 Superstreet Project. This meeting is open to the public.
At a previous meeting that was not open to the public, town manager John Ward, county manager Deron Geouque and Boone Mayor Rennie Brantz met with NCDOT representatives in the initial stages of changing some of the unpopular parts of the 105 Superstreet proposal.
Ramie Shaw, the NCDOT Division 11 Project Team Lead, would not comment at the time on what some of those changes are, however he did say that he felt like the meeting went well and was glad to get together with everyone for a meeting to discuss possible changes.
Public comment after the initial unveiling of the project saw the NCDOT receive a lot of pushback from local businesses, residents and both town and county officials. The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce presented a letter on behalf of several area businesses requesting changes to the original plan and both the Boone Town Council and the Watauga County Commissioners passed a resolution stating that changes needed to be made to the original superstreet proposal to keep from hurting business traffic.
An updated 105 Superstreet plan will be shared with the public at a later date after further discussion at this week’s meeting.