by Mark Peterson, Editor, Stewartville Star
With the cost of complete reconstruction a bit high and concerns that a simpler mill and overlay wouldn’t get the job done, city officials have opted for a compromise proposal for fixing Sixth Avenue Southwest.
The Stewartville City Council unanimously agreed last week to “reclaim and overlay” the road as part of the city’s 2016 CIP projects.
Mayor Jimmie-John King and councilpersons Gary Stensrud, Wendy Timm, Dick Uptagrafft and Craig Anderson all agreed to move forward with the reclaim and overlay option.
David Strauss, an engineer for Short Elliott Hedrickson (SEH), the city’s engineering firm, originally proposed that the city completely reconstruct the portion of the street that runs from Stewartville High School to Sixth Street Southwest.
However, Barb Neubauer, city finance director, wrote in a memo to the City Council that, upon further review, Strauss recommended the reclaim and overlay option.
“The project would be to reclaim the roadway, salvage the reclaim material, prepare the subgrade with any desired correction, place the salvage reclaim material and any additional aggregate, and then pave (it.)” Neubauer wrote.
Bill Schimmel Jr., city administrator, said officials didn’t seem interested in the lower-cost mill and overlay option because the road wouldn’t have stayed in good condition very long.
“Then Dave (Strauss) came back with the whole nine yards, the full reconstruct, and then I think we all got a little nervous with what those estimates were, and so this ends up being a middle of the road to get us a longer life than the mill and overlay, because you…”
For more on this story pick up your copy of the Nov. 17 Stewartville STAR.
For more on this story pick up your copy of the November 16 Stewartville STAR.