“Name that Year” is designed to put your knowledge of Tracy and its newsmakers of the past to the test. Each week, we will publish a news item that ran in a past edition — maybe it was a major event, or a story about a Tracy resident — it’s up to you to determine in what year that particular news item hit the pages of the paper:
• The Tracy City Council unanimously approved a “Community Partnership” agreement with the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad in this year.
The agreement, which must be ratified by the D.M&E’s board of directors, specifics improvements that will be made in Tracy if the railroad’s $1.4 billion renovation plan moves forward.
The City can also ask for other improvements not listed in the plan.
At the City of Tracy’s request, the DM&E plan adds safety gates at the Center Street crossing. Earlier, the DM&E plan called for only signal lights at the Center Street crossing.
The plan calls for the continuation of flashing signal lights and safety gates at the Fourth Street cross and the new flashing lights at the Highline Road crossing.
The council has requested that safety gates and flashing lights be installed on the Highline Road and flashing warning lights be installed at the “Rialson Crossing” a half mile west of Tracy on Lyon County Highway 14. The current DM&E plan calls only for cross-buck signs on the Rialson Crossing and signal lights on the Highline Road.
However, in the agreement, the DM&E agrees to implement any requirements mandated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation or federal regulators. Tracy officials were told that a Surface Transportation Improvement plan for the year 2000 calls for gates and lights at both the Highline Road and the Rialson crossings.
• Last week’s answer: By a 3-to-1 margin, Tracy voters supported a $1.5 million swimming pool bond referendum in 2001.
