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Steps, delays that jeopardized 8th/9th Street plans
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On June 2, 2006, the city received notice that three criteria needed to be met for the city to keep its federal and state funding for the project: a Memorandum of Agreement, a Federal Highway Administration 4(f) evaluation and an environmental report (ER).

The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), which should have taken four months to sign, was not completed until August 2007, Mayor Ron Marsh said. The MOA is used to gather consent and agreement from all parties involved. Those having to sign the MOA were the Federal Highway Administration, Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Officer, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the City of Monroe, and local businesses along the street.

Federal Highway Administration Section 4(f) could not be started until the MOA was complete, and was not signed until September 2008.

"Two purposes of a written Section 4(f) evaluation are to establish an administrative record and to ensure that FHWA has followed the regulatory and statutory requirements," according the FHWA policy paper, dated March 1, 2005. "The administrative record is the agency's written record that memorializes the basis for determining that there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of the 4(f) resource and demonstrates that FHWA used all possible planning and measures to minimize harm."

Besides publicly owned parks, recreation areas, or wildlife and waterfowl refuges, Section 4(f) applies to any land from an historic site of national, state or local significance, and to all historic sites of national, state or local significance, whether or not these sites are publicly owned or open to the public.

The FHWA 4(f) needs to be signed by U.S. Department of Interior, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Wisconsin D.O.T.

The environmental report (ER), which needs two months to complete after the 4(f) is finished, is signed by the Wis. D.O.T., Wisconsin State Historical Preservation office, Wis. D.O.T. Bureau of Equity and Environmental Services, and the Federal Highway Administration.