Several De Soto streets will be repaired this year after the City Council unanimously approved a contract with Jokerst Inc. of Ste. Genevieve.
Jokerst Inc. was the lowest of three bidders for this year’s asphalt overlay projects with a price of $95.14 per ton of asphalt. Other submitted bids were from Jokerst Paving & Contracting of Festus for $98.90 per ton and Spencer Contracting of Arnold for $103.95 per ton.
The streets to be overlayed include: South Fourth Street from College to Kingston streets; Lake Street from South Second to Plum streets; South Fifth Street from Kingston to Lake streets; South Second Alley from Kingston Street to the dead end; South Third Street from Lake to College streets; South Third Street from Kingston to Lake streets; Kingston Street from South Second to South Fifth streets; and College Street from South Second to South Fifth streets.
“Milling is set up for next week, weather permitting and Jokerst Inc. is planning on being on site the first week of May,” City Manager Todd Melkus said. “Without any changes in the project, we are looking at an asphalt budget of $217,689.83.”
After the vote, Melkus addressed resident Becky Williams about a complaint she made during public comments about potholes on some of the main streets, including Boyd Street.
“We’ve applied for an East-West Gateway (Council of Governments) grant to get (Boyd Street) milled and overlaid,” said Melkus, adding the city should find out if it got the grant in the next month or two. “We know there are multiple potholes. We fill them every time it rains, they disappear again. Don’t ever hesitate to call when there’s a specific (pothole) because there are sometimes side streets, too, that we don’t just see every day.”
He said the city does its best to get potholes fixed as quickly as possible.
Melkus said the big project for this year will be Miller Street, which will be 80 percent funded by East-West Gateway.
“Currently, (we) are working on getting all of our (temporary) easements and stuff from Donnelly (Street) all the way down to Main Street,” he said. “That’s going to be doing a total resurfacing, sidewalks, streetlights, the whole gambit. That will probably not go out to bid until this fall. We will be patching until then. Boyd Street – the same thing.
“Just the estimated cost to pave Boyd Street from (Hwy.) 21 to Main was roughly $1.3 million, so that is why we apply for these grants. Unfortunately, they’re only applicable for main thoroughfares. That’s how we got the Clarke Street project done.”
Melkus then explained how the streets were chosen for asphalt overlays.
“If you’re familiar with the area, it might sound like a lot of the same areas getting this overlay,” Melkus said. “That’s because we did the infrastructure … we replaced all the water mains. The streets got torn up/cut up and so that’s why those are getting overlayed in this next round.
“Every year, the city tries to budget roughly $250,000 to do asphalt overlays. There are some streets that we know need attention. A lot of the streets have water and sewer mains in the middle of the street. We try to get those repaired before we do the overlay because the last thing you want to do is spend all this money to make it nice and then you have to cut it up to fix it.”
In other business, City Clerk Ann Houska swore in three newly elected City Council members. Autumn Blanchard and Mike Bone defeated incumbents Todd Mahn and Tonia Schmitt, and were elected to three-year terms.
Incumbent Kathy Smith was elected to a one-year term, the remainder of the term vacated by Rich McCane, after defeating Danny Manning.
Mayor Matt Franken made a motion to nominate Smith as the mayor for the term until the next April election; the motion was unanimously approved. Smith made a motion to nominate Franken as chairperson pro tem; the motion unanimously passed.