Five alternatives for Renner Addition
By Danielle Abbott
"The city of Washburn contracted Toman Engineering to first develop a street inventory plan for the city to figure out what was needed to be done to the various streets within Washburn," said David Thompson, representative of Toman Engineering during Monday’s special meeting called by the city of Washburn, partially to address the Renner Road addition, which was petitioned out by 80 percent of the property owners. "We looked at three options, one was to come in and repair all of the patched areas that were breaking up, put those down to sub-base, and bring these streets back up. We also looked at coming in with a two-inch mill and then repairing the really bad areas where the subgrade has failed. We also looked at the entire repair and replacement of the streets, ripping out and putting in new asphalt. The removal and repair was the option I felt most cost efficient and gave the citizens the most bang for their buck" Thompson said, "That project as been protested out." Having the Renner Addition street project, number 2009-03, petitioned out meant back to the drawing board for Thompson, and he spent the last week reviewing different options and solutions for the street project. "There is always another way of doing it, but we felt that the alternate we picked was a way to fix the problems for a long time," Thompson said. He continued to explain this his previous proposed project, which Thompson estimated $408,000, would last 20-25 years. The proposed project received a bid of $305,000 on March 9, but since the project had been protested out at that time, the bid was opened and read but could not be accepted. All costs given by Thompson do not include interest. Thompson prepared five alternatives to share with the Washburn City Commission and the Renner Addition residents that attended the meeting. Before sharing any alternative options, Thompson said, "These different alternatives that we talk about will last one to five years, so in another five years you will be paying for another project and costs will have gone up in those five years. It’s not going to be the 20 years that we are looking at right now for the removal and repair. "For a cheaper fix, you may have a shorter period of time to pay for the repairs." Thompson based the costs of the new alternatives on the $305, 000 estimate that was received on March 9 for the repair and replacement project. The costs of that estimate and of the new alternatives do not include the cost of mobilization, and Thompson reminded the residents that all costs listed were estimates only. The costs also do not include any seal coat, because the city plans to use a citywide seal coat in the future, and keep the cost of the individual street coats down. The estimates do, however, include all curb and gutter projects within the Renner Addition. Thompson estimated a total of 200 feet for curb and gutter that will be completed in the addition.
