City Council sets special meeting to decide on bond for road repair

A special work/study session has been set for 6 p.m., May 11, by the Belleville City Council to consider going out for a bond to repair city streets.
DPW Director Keith Tackett guessed it would take about $14 million to do the job.
At Monday’s regular meeting, the council received a detailed pavement evaluation report from Hennessey Engineers rating the condition of all the city streets in Belleville. Each street was rated 1 (failure of pavement) to 10 (excellent).
Streets not included were the streets owned by Wayne County: Huron River Drive, Savage Road, and Sumpter Road.
Ryan Kern of Hennessey reported that he did the field evaluation at the end of March on the 10 miles of city streets.
DPW Director Keith Tackett said Harbour Pointe streets fell one full point over the harsh winter. He said it would have taken just over $1 million to repair the Harbour Pointe streets last year and now it is more than $1.2 million.
The council was told Main Street is rated an 8. It should have been maintained and the joints and cracks sealed, Kern said.
“All of our joints opened up. All the sealer is gone,” Tackett said. “It would take just four to five days to make Main Street last an extra 10 years.”
“I have a concern,” said Councilwoman Kim Tindall. “We just did Main Street and it’s an 8 already.”
Tackett said in the evaluation they found just one pothole on Main Street and patched it at once. He said when the joints are open to the water it will freeze and thaw next winter and deteriorate.
Tackett said a whole lot of 4” water mains are below the surface and they have to be replaced with 8” minimum mains.
City Manager Diana Kollmeyer said the city’s financial consultants are interested in what the total road package would be. She said the funds in the Major and Local Streets account would not be enough.
“It would have to be a bond,” Mayor Kerreen Conley said and it would be better to have just one bond rather than several. “One bond and how many years?”
She said the council has to decide, “If we would schedule it, what would it look like? So, the finances can be set up.”
Mayor Conley said in order to have support from voters throughout the city they have to insure all the streets are brought up to the same standards.
She asked Kern to sort out the streets by their ratings so they can be considered by the council.
Councilman Tom Fielder said they should set up a crack seal program at once to save the quality of the roads.
Councilwoman Tindall said the paperwork shows it would take just $40,000 to seal Main Street.
When guesses were being made about how much it would cost to do all the streets, Tackett said: “$14 million, I would guess.”
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the council:
• Approved Mayor Conley’s first appointment to the Civil Service Commission since the voters refused to eliminate the commission last November. The new appointee is Jacqueline Schank-Ulch of Harbour Pointe;
• Approved Egan’s Pub use of the Fourth Street Square on Sept. 12 for its Half Way to St. Patrick’s Day party and for March 17, 2016 for its St. Patrick’s Day party. Both parties are from 7 a.m. to midnight. Tindall voted no on both events since she opposes alcohol being served on city property;
• Approved the use of the Fourth Street Square for the Kona Strawberry Run on June 19 during Strawberry Festival in order to put up a beer tent and serve a free drink to each runner after the race. Tindall voted no on that, as well. Larry O’Sullivan of Kona said they will have live entertainment on the course, with a Scare Station at the cemetery and Hawaiian dancers and ukulele players at another spot. The course starts at Horizon Park, heads along Main Street to the Denton Road bridge, over the bridge and up Denton Road in a course through subdivisions and then back to the city;
• Approved Lori Werner’s “Fitness in the Park” project sponsored by the Central Business Community. Ken Voigt said Werner came to him with her plan pointing out Plymouth has such a project. This will be in Victory Park for six weeks on Wednesdays starting June 24. It will be free with different fitness organizations running it each week;
• Approved a new date for the Autism Boot Drive by the Belleville Fire Department from 2-6 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, and a rain date of 3-7 p.m. on April 30. The last date approved got rained out;
• Opened three bids for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Sewer Rehabilitation Program project, which had a pre-bid estimate of $497,000: Liquiforce Services, $423,043.13; Pipeline Management Co., $558,847; and Inland Waters, $458,251. The bids were turned over to the engineers for a recommendation at the next meeting. The anticipated start date is July 15, with substantial completion by the end of the year; and
• Approved accounts payable of $191,362.03 and departmental purchases in excess of $500: to Current Election for motor replacement, $852; to ES&S for election programming, $1,308.03; to Hennessey for S-2 Sewer Grant, $7,600; to Macomb Community College for training class, $695; to SLC for maintenance agreement, $3,347.50; to SMART for repair/maintenance, $812.16; to Washtenaw Area Mutual Aid Association for annual membership dues, $600; and to Wayne County Accounts Receivable for prisoner lodging at Dickerson, $1,050.