Cedar Street punchlist completed, final payment authorized
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Cedar Street punchlist has been completed, and the Colfax Village Board has authorized the final pay request of just shy of $100,000.
The punchlist had about a dozen items, including sand stockpile areas, the curb and gutter on Cedar Street, the manholes and the sidewalks, said Mitch Nicols of Ayres Associates at the Colfax Village Board’s October 9 meeting.
The Cedar Street project had initially been expected to be completed in July.
Nicols said he had done a walk-through of Cedar Street just prior to the village board meeting, and there was one item he still had to talk about with Rand Bates, director of public works, which was the sandpile by the railroad tracks.
Bates decided on cut-in patches on Cedar Street for the manhole covers, and the the manhole covers are now one-quarter inch below the roadway, as they are supposed to be, Nicols said.
The curb and gutter is finished, and the storm inlets have been cleaned out so there are no longer any chunks of concrete, he said.
The grass also is starting to grow on the boulevard, Nicols noted.
The retainage that will be left on the contract is enough to cover anything else that might come up, he said.
The amount that will be retained is $9,208.24.
Contractor
Since there were so many issues with Riverview Avenue last year and Cedar Street this year with Skid Steer Guy LLC as the contractor, Gary Stene, village trustee, asked about whether the village should continue doing business with Skid Steer Guy LLC.
Many of the issues with Cedar Street were caused by the subcontractors, such as the manhole covers not at the proper depth. The paving contractor was Monarch Paving, and the village is as likely to get Monarch Paving as a subcontractor for another company as the village is to get Monarch Paving with Skid Steer Guy, Nicols said.
Some of the problems were caused by Skid Steer Guy crew members who are young and not seasoned at street work, he said, adding that the owner of Skid Steer Guy is perfectly capable of overseeing street projects and making sure the project is finished.
If the village is not interested in hiring Skid Steer Guy LLC again for another street project, then it would be better for the village to ask the company not to bid on future projects than it would be to allow the company to bid and then reject the bid, Nicols said.
It’s not just Colfax that has been experiencing problems with street projects. Other much larger municipalities are also experiencing some of the same problems with different contractors, said Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer.
Boulevard
Stene also asked about the quality of the soil that was used on the boulevard for the Cedar Street project.
The quality of the dirt on some street projects in Colfax has been so poor that “you couldn’t grow sand burrs,” he said.
For those who are not familiar with them, sand burrs, as one might suspect, thrive in sandy soil. The seed heads have tiny, sharp burrs that are painful if stepped on by bare feet or poked into a finger.
There were many big rocks that had to be raked out of the boulevard on Cedar Street, Nicols said.
The Riverview Avenue project also had problems with lots of rocks, Stene said.
The boulevard “took pretty well for the time of year it was hydro-seeded. We’ll have to see how it looks in the spring,” Nicols said.
If the village board approves the final pay request presented, then the substantial completion date will be the previous Friday (October 6), so the contractor will have one year to fix any remaining problems, he said.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved the pay request in the amount of $99,070.99 to Skid Steer Guy LLC.
The original contract amount was $348,815.
Other business
In other business, the Colfax Village Board:
• Approved closing the village hall from 9 a.m. to approximately noon on Tuesday, October 17, for a library planning committee meeting in Menomonie. Deputy clerk Sheila Riemer was on vacation that day, and Niggemann was planning to attend the library planning meeting. The meeting was set up to be an educational opportunity on library funding, said Stene, who serves on the Dunn County Board and is chair of the county’s library planning committee.
• Approved a contract with Zempel Appraisal for 2024 in the amount of $10,800, which is the same amount as this year. There were no changes to the contract, Niggemann said.