City council approves contract for sea wall repair to start April 1

Repairs are scheduled to begin April 1 on the crumbling seawall at Doane’s Landing park in Belleville, following action of the Belleville City Council at Monday’s regular meeting.
The city’s building official Rick Rutherford said he talked to E.C. Korneffel Co. of Trenton and told it the council was voiding its contract for the seawall repair for “non-response.”
Then he talked to the other bidder on the project, C&R Lakeside Landscaping, and C&R agreed to keep the $295,000 bid price and do the work for the city. The only problem was it was busy now and the scope of the project is 60 days, Rutherford said.
“If a contractor isn’t very busy now, that contractor probably isn’t worth us working with,” Rutherford said. He noted C&R has a barge on the lake.
He said the owner of C&R, Chris, reached out to the city’s geo-technical engineers McDowell & Associates and said he will follow their plans.
Rutherford said this will be a little cheaper than the Korneffel bid of $339,000 and things can be ordered and be ready to go in the spring. The Korneffel bid included the condo seawall.
“Are we sure it’s going to be good enough to last the winter?” Mayor Kerreen Conley asked Rutherford, referring to the damaged seawall.
Rutherford said he will continue with the monitoring he has been doing and the city could do emergency shore up, if necessary.
He said C&R had very specific cost numbers for the city responsibility and C&R is willing to work with the property owners privately. Both have the same engineering firm, he said.
Korneffel wanted to do all the work at one price that included the city and the condo owners and then let the city get paid back by the condos.
If the two projects can’t be done together, the city plans to put a return wall into the plans to separate the two seawalls. Negotiations with the condos will continue.
The vote to accept C&R’s bid was unanimous by the council, which had a bare quorum. Present were Mayor Conley and Councilmen Jesse Marcotte and Tom Fielder. Absent were Mayor Pro Tem Jack Loria and Councilman Tom Smith.
A man in the audience who did not identify himself said he had been following the “seawall thing” and suggested the city do rocks along the shore and landscaping, which he said was cheaper.
Rutherford said the existing seawall is already failing and the man suggested putting the rocks in front.
“I don’t think it would solve the problem,” Rutherford said. “It’s the toe at the bottom that’s failing.”
“We aren’t experts, but we asked experts for their advice,” said Councilman Fielder. “This is the best solution. … They feel that is the best way to stabilize this. … Maybe rocks should have been used two years ago.”
The man said he goes down to Doane’s Landing and uses the park, but only about two people go down there.
“Nobody uses it,” he said.
Later in the meeting, Councilman Marcotte said he appreciates C&R for keeping its bid price and maybe this delay will give the condo property owners time to plan for paying for their repairs.
In other business at Monday’s 58-minute meeting, the council:
• Approved a street-closing request for Harvest Fest on Oct. 13 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Library Director Mary Jo Suchy requested the closing of Roys Street from Main to before the Chase Bank drive-through lanes to provide space for festival activities. “I usually come to you to close Fourth Street,” Suchy said and no further comment was necessary because of the library construction activity now on the closed Fourth Street;
• Heard Mike Renaud say at the last meeting he commented on weeds at the corner of High Street and West Huron River Drive and now they have been cut and he should thank the city for that. He said he assumed the city did it and Rutherford said it was done in-house, which was easier than trying to get the county to do it. Rutherford said the Rotary Club also did some work;
• Approved accounts payable of $412,014.17 and the following purchases in excess of $500: to Blue Ribbon, $14,632.56 for water main break; to Oakland County, $4,325.76 for CLEMIS fees/maintenance for police; to Mueller Systems, $3,352.50 for device for water meter diagnosis, and $2,750 for water systems maintenance fee; to Action Training, $2,376 for fire fighter training; to Applied Concepts, $2,099 for traffic radar unit for police; to Wayne County, $1,995 for lodging at Dickerson jail for police; to Jack Doheny Co., $1,454.25 for street sweeper repair; and to CMP Distributors, $669 for bullet-proof vest for police;
• Heard Rutherford say he sent the 19-year-old street sweeper over to Doheny just for an estimate for repairs and they fixed it. He said with the cost of a new sweeper, the city definitely has to keep tuning her up. He said the sweeper was out earlier that day and functioned properly;
• Heard discussion about problems with water bills being wrong because of the meters and the transfer of ownership when Mueller bought KP Systems and SLC Meters went out of business. Rutherford said currently two, full-time DPW workers are taking monthly readings on 160 meters and the item just purchased is a vital piece of equipment or the city will have to get an entirely new system;
• Heard Fielder report that at the Parks and Recreation meeting that afternoon, there was discussion on the handicapped swing at Victory Park that has been missing for some time. If a new handicapped swing couldn’t be put in, they would like to put in a basket to hold a child to fill the empty space. Also, there are no benches for parents and grandparents at the children’s playground at Village Park, so they would like the five, bolted-down benches surrounding the basketball court in the park to be transferred to the playground area. Fielder said the commission plans to set up an organizational meeting the week of Sept. 10 to decide about a community garden for next summer; and
• Also heard Fielder announce the Rotary Club is teaming up with Parks and Recreation to concentrate on the gazebo at Horizon Park. He thanked the Rotary for taking ownership of the gazebo at Victory Park and working on it for the past several years. He said what to do about the rose arbor at Horizon Park is another whole story.