Whose wall is it, anyway?

DIXON Its been an issue for a while: After the retaining wall outside the old Lee County Courthouse collapsed in spring 2013, the city paid to clean up the debris. But whos responsible for repairing it?

Its a 2-year-old tale of he said, he said, he said, and it came up again at Tuesdays County Board meeting.

The gist of the argument between the city of Dixon, the county, and Illinois Department of Transportation is that back in the early 90s, when the intersection at Galena and Second avenues was expanded, the state bought some of the countys property on the block that houses the courthouse, added a right-hand turn lane, and rebuilt a cement block retaining wall with a limestone facade.

When that happened, IDOT also entered into a maintenance agreement with the city that said the state will maintain its roadway, and the city will maintain the sidewalk and appurtenances, which basically means anything abutting the roadway.

In IDOTs opinion, the wall is an appurtenance, IDOT engineer Kevin Marchek said.

As far as the citys concerned, though and as officials have brought up in talks with the county and state the wall wasnt built properly to begin with, street commissioner Jeff Kuhn said.

The limestone is a facade up against the cement blocks, he said. There was nothing in there for drainage, and with the hydraulic pressure ... the expansion pushed the cement block sideways, and thats what knocked the limestone off the wall, which caused the problem.

It was the state who came up with the drawings and paid for the wall to be built, but we feel it was not built correctly. ... Theres a lot of misunderstanding. Theres a lot of finger-pointing. If youre going to find a solution, the three sides need to sit down and do it, but were not at that point yet.

IDOT does not agree that the wall was built incorrectly.

It was built in accordance with the plans, Marchek said. If there was water pressure behind the wall, or pushing the wall over, you would think the dirt behind the wall would come down with it, but now the dirt is still standing.

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Whose wall is it, anyway?