City to repair less streets this year

Less street repair

These streets require a fair amount of concrete, and curb and gutter and obviously that adds to the costs of those blocks.”

Mark Bousselot, FM Public Works Director

FORT MADISON – City officials have identified four stretches of road that will be resurfaced as part of $300,000 that was budgeted in the upcoming fiscal year.
City Public Works Director Mark Bousselot said the city will be resurfacing 5th Street from Avenue E to Avenue F; Avenue F from 15th to 16th Street, Avenue I from 20th to 21st streets and Avenue N from 27th Street to 29th Street.
The projects were selected from a list of city streets that have been categorized from level 1 to level 4 with ones needing the most work including curbs and gutters.
Mayor Matt Mohrfeld and Councilman Rusty Andrews pushed Bousselot to try todo more with the same amount of money.
“I know Matt would like to see 12, but we found five.  We can’t do 12 or 15 blocks because we’ve taken and (completed) some of the cheaper streets. These streets require a fair amount of concrete, and curb and gutter, and obviously that adds to the costs of those blocks,” Bousselot said.
Councilman Rusty Andrews said the projects sound small comparative to the money being spent.
Bousselot said the majority of the cost will be concrete and asphalt. He said the city would be removing the current surfacing which is not included in the projected cost.
“It’s just concrete and asphalt and then the rock material, we’ll have to buy. Which is going to be a small amount compared to the full $300,000, so that’s not much,” Bousselot said.
He said about $40,000 will be spent on rock for the subsurface.
Andrews asked why the city wouldn’t go out for bid for 12 blocks if he’s going to go out for bids with $300,000 in mind. Bousselot said he knows the city can’t get 12 blocks done for that amount of money.
“Let’s say I go out and say we’re going to do 30 blocks. Rusty, you know they’re going to give me a good price because there’s 30 blocks worth of work and when they get here and can only do five blocks, they’re going to submit a change order because I can’t do the five blocks at the same price I can do 30,” Bousselot said.
Bousselot said if the city can find more than $300,000, he will do more blocks.
Barb Asay, a developer in the city, asked Bousselot how they came up with the streets.
“How do you determine these blocks? 10th Street is way worse than these streets. How did you decide this when I can barely get home without losing a strut?” she asked.
Bousselot then explained the categorizing system, but also said the city will have to tear up 10th Street as part of the sewer separation plans so he won’t touch that stretch until that work is done.
“We have categorized them 1-4 and the ones are the worst and more significant and need repaired the most. 10th Street is not going to get done because of the sewer separation. The last thing we’re going to go do is 10th Street when we’re going to tear it up and put a new sewer in in the next year or two,” he said.
He said the city has repaired more than 75 blocks in the last four years with money that has been allocated in the budget, but these roads need a bit more work and will cost more to get done.
“But we picked off some of the streets that didn’t require all the concrete curb and gutters so we could do more streets out there. Now we’re to the point where we have to do the streets that need the curb and gutter work and that costs a lot more per block,” he said.
Morhfeld said the trick to maintaining infrastructure is to be diligent in the process.