Abbotsford city council searches for cuts on Cedar Street project

The Abbotsford city council decided to leave budget cuts up to city personnel on a street project that has come in overbudget.

The Cedar Street project is scheduled to take place in May and was slated to cost the city $621,812.22 according to an initial estimate made by MSA. Instead, the lowest bid came in at $644,205.

Public works director Craig Stuttgen said the work that needs to be done to the utilities on that stretch of road is immense. He said he has dealt with three water main breaks in the time he has been working with the city and said the storm sewer catch basins were shot. Despite the vast amount of work that needs to be done, he said he could save the city up to $46,000 by having city workers work on portions of the project.

“We went through the bid tabulation and we shaved off as much fat as we could,” Stuttgen said.

One of the money savings alternatives included providing less catch basins for storm water than previously planned for. MSA’s renderings of the project called for eight catch basins. Stuttgen believed the project could do with less catch basins because the elevation of the street goes from 1,426 feet at the corner of Third Avenue and Cedar Street to 1417 feet at the corner of Larch Circle and Third Avenue.

The elevation dips as the terrain slopes ever so slightly towards a creek on West Pine Street. The dip in elevation means any overflow of water from Cedar Street should flow to other catch basins down Third Avenue or to the creek near Pine Street.

Stuttgen provided a map which displayed elevations throughout the project area.

“The biggest problem we have on that street is that creek cannot handle a 10-year storm,” Stuttgen said. “It bottlenecks out on Willow Avenue which is three quarters of a mile out of town.”

Stuttgen said in a past 10-year storm, there was a foot of standing water on Pine Street due to the backup of the creek. He said the city could fix the problem by Willow Avenue by putting in an additional culvert.

Assuming that happens down the line, Stuttgen suggested the Cedar Street plan should only include four catch basins instead of the proposed eight because more basins could be added further north on Third Avenue in the future.

Borchardt was asked his opinion and if that would be something the city could do.

“It’s up to the municipality whether they would like to accept a lesser design standard than we’ve proposed,” he said.

Over $360,000 of the cost of the project will be covered using a safe drinking water loan and $216,084 would be covered by principal forgiveness. The rest of the project would be covered using money from a TIF fund.

The council voted to award the bid for the project to Haas Sons Inc. out of Thorp for $644,205 and agreed to let City Administrator Josh Soyk, Stuttgen and Dan Borchardt of MSA work on cutting the budget of the project.

The current contract for the cell tower is held by Vertical Bridge which ends in 2030. Last year, EIP Holdings Inc. presented the city with a proposed contract. The city took the contract to their attorney, Lee D. Turonie of Dempsey Law, who suggested they add in some language to satisfy some glaring omissions.

The contract that both EIP and the city have agreed to would pay the city $20,000 per year until 2030 along with a one-time $25,000 bonus. After 2030, EIP would pay the city a minimum of $30,000 or 50 percent of net revenues.

The council added language to the contract that ensured the city could use the cell tower for emergency services equipment at no charge to the city. They also added language that stated the city could put up a tower within one mile of the cell tower for emergency services equipment.

The agreement could be matched by Vertical Bridge because they have a right of first refusal clause in their contract with the city. Vertical Bridge will have 60 days to match the contract or else the lease would end in 2030 and the city would be under contract with EIP.

In comparison, the city was paid $7,127.22 in 2022 by Vertical Bridge for the use of the tower.

n Alderman Jeremiah Zeiset was named the city forester by the council. Zeiset was asking if he could plant some trees in Red Arrow Park and Soyk said the city’s ordinance on the matter states the trees would have to be OK’d by the city’s forester. However, the city has not had a city forester as of late so Zeiset volunteered to take on the role.

Any proposals for planting of trees on city property would need to go through Zeiset who would then bring the proposals to the council. Zeiset’s proposal for Red Arrow Park will be heard at a future meeting.

n The council voted to go with Johnson Block CPAs as the city’s auditor going forward. The quote given by Johnson Block was lower than that of the city’s past auditor, Hawkins Ash CPAs.