Weather, meetings, construction, and demolition

Are you enjoying the ever changing weather of March? Last Wednesday we had blue skies but very high winds that blew many of the trash cans on Front Street into the street.

 Over the weekend the temperatures dropped and we had light snow all day on Monday. Fortunately most of the snow that hit the roads melted and the water evaporated. Below you can see the snow on the construction site of the wet weather treatment plant. By the end of work on Monday only five of the culvert pieces were still above ground.

 The construction shown above was the subject of two of the agenda items for the meeting of the Board of Public Works late on Monday afternoon. The Board approved pay request 12 for Bowen Construction. The amount was about $339K. The project is officially 92% complete. A start-up simulation is scheduled for March 20. There are some extra funds that will be used to install a liner in a sewer pipe from the library to the lift station.

The second item was a payment of almost $26K to Commonwealth Engineering for three invoices, the largest of which was to pay for someone to monitor the construction.

The third agenda item was an amendment to an engineering contract with Commonwealth to design a phosphate injection system for the water treatment plant. It does something to coat the interior of pipes. The final item was the appointment of three people to a Technical Review Board that will oversee design needed to transform the old fire station into a new police station.

The City Council meeting on Monday evening had a very short agenda and I was the only person attending whose name was not on the roll call. A gas tracker increase of three cents per hundred cubic feet was passed for March. Also approved were a transfer of funds, the purchase of a new laptop for the building inspector, cemetery deed request, and payment for a new appraisal for the old Monnett School building (seen in the background in the picture below). The for-sale sign indicates that it has a new, lower asking price.

 As for the foreground in the picture above, which was taken on Friday, the house is now rubble. I forgot to check it on Monday morning, but that might not have mattered. I was told that the demolition was very quick.

There are some complications in getting the lien release for the well property on Sparling. The City does not want to buy the property until it finds out if an OCRA grant will be funded and the closing of SJC creates additional complications. The Council passed a motion to allow the City to use an escrow account or a line of credit depending on which the owner of the mortgage prefers.

Cleanup week will be May 1-5. Grace Street will be closed for construction from Park to Cullen, probably beginning on April 10. The meeting lasted only twenty minutes.

Last Friday I took the picture below at the College Mall. The footings for the future O'Reilly Auto Parts Store were being poured.