Center, Buffalo Signal Project Completed But Now Curb, Ramp Work Is Necessary
January 4, 2020 at 2:17 a.m.
By David [email protected]
Street Superintendent Jeff Beeler requested the Board of Public Works and Safety on Friday approve a payment application from Michiana Contracting for $290,386.48 for the traffic signal modernization. The Board of Works approved the project at its June 7 meeting and approved the payment application Friday.
Beeler said the city does have a “retainage” for the project that probably will be included in the second payment application to be presented to the Board of Works at its Jan. 17 meeting after a few items are finalized.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer asked if the retainage was sufficient enough to cover the issues with the curb ramp.
City engineer James Emans said he didn’t know. Thallemer asked him if there was concern about the curb height. Emans said there was, and “that portion will be covered at no cost. The contractor will cover that, rework those elevations at no cost to us.”
Thallemer asked if the retainage would be held until that was completed, and Emans said yes. Emans also said he didn’t anticipate there being an issue with the contractor doing that work.
Later in the meeting, Emans presented a proposal from Lawson-Fisher Associates P.C. for engineering design services for the intersection curb ramp design.
“When the project was designed, the designers – Lawson-Fisher – to meet ADA requirements, created a ramp on the southwest corner. That was compliant with ADA. We don’t like it. We’re not satisfied with it,” Emans said. “This proposal is to revisit that.”
He told the Board of Works, “Some of the criteria that they use, to make it so you can walk anywhere on the sidewalks and get to a ramp, it had to be redesigned to what is out there right now. We think we can create some barriers that limit the walk space that opens up opportunities to still be compliant with ADA but to get crosswalks that go both north and east. We’ve asked them to revisit their design and give us an option of what kind of restrictions we would have to build into that type of ramp where there’s two ways to get across.”
Emans said “they did what it was asked,” but the city didn’t notice the crosswalk was altered to be angled because of the restrictions they had.
“It’s somewhat amplified because the contractor failed to build the curbed gutter line along Center Street per the design. That gutter line was supposed to be raised, recognizing that there are going to be people that come from the courthouse side and come south across the road that won’t go to the ramp, they’ll just step up. But it’s a big step because the contractor failed to build it the way it was designed,” Emans said.
He said that part will get fixed if the corner is redone. At the minimum, he said the gutter line will be fixed by the contractor at no cost to the city.
“But instead of having them fix that right now, we would rather look at what this ramp would look like if we could go east and go north. So we asked the designers to come back in and give us a design,” Emans said.
Thallemer said the complexity of the ADA requirements was probably what created the concern from the fact that the curb height needs to be changed. He said it’s probably one of the busiest crosswalks downtown and he wants to make it as pedestrian-friendly as possible.
All crosswalks have to meet ADA specifications or the city risks losing federal funding.
The $4,000 contract with Lawson-Fisher was approved.
In other business, the Board of Works approved:
• An agreement between the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department and Warsaw-Wayne Township. The township will pay the city $75,000 for township residents and children to have access to the parks and parks programs.
Of the $75,000, an amount of $26,000 will be used as a direct rent or lease payment offset for those organizations renting or leasing space in the Pete Thorn Building on North Park Avenue.
Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer explained the Wayne Township Board wanted something to put their money toward. The $26,000 allocated by the township board will help offset the rent for the Senior Center so it can keep its rent low. He said this is the fourth year for the allocation, and this is the second year the township has provided $75,000 to the city, up from $72,500 a couple of years ago.
• A letter of engagement with bakertilly for bakertilly to continue to work on the city’s comprehensive financial plan. The amount is not to exceed $30,000. Thallemer said 2019 was the first year the city had the plan.
“The whole idea here is that we’re projecting (our spending) three to four years in the future and this gives us a big advantage when we sit down and do the budget,” he said.
• A contract with Anderson Property Management to plant and maintain 18 satellite beds and 21 urns at Central Park for $1,888.88 per month for nine months, as requested by Plummer.
• An agreement between Warsaw Community Schools and the city for ice-melting materials, as requested by Beeler.
• A contract for $10,000 with Christopher B. Burke Engineering LLC to conduct a detailed facility and existing stormwater pollution prevention plan audit and assessment for the Warsaw Municipal Airport, as requested by Utilities Superintendent Brian Davison.
“The airport is a little bit unique just because of what they do and some of the chemicals they use for de-icing,” Davison said in explaining why the airport had a contract separate from the rest of the city.
A second contract approved with Burke Engineering for $15,000 will conduct a detailed facility and existing stormwater pollution prevention plan audit for the fire and police departments, Oakwood Cemetery, Wastewater Treatment Utility, Public Works and Parks and Recreation.
• An annual contract for $20,000 with Christopher B. Burke Engineering LLC for Burke Engineering to provide ongoing, on-call services.
• A change order for the sewer rehabilitation project, as requested by Davison. It’s a deduction of $57,867.19.
Davison said, “We removed some work, and moved it into replacement instead of lining. Some of it, pipe diameters changed, and so it was less expensive or more expensive to do. Overall, it’s a deduct of that amount.”
He said it should close out the project, with a final payment and a work completion certificate at the Jan. 17 Board of Works meeting.
He later added that $10 million was borrowed from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) for the sewer rehabilitation projects, but “we ended up with some monies unspent of that original loan amount. So what we’re looking at doing is, to maximize those dollars that we’re able to get at that very low interest rate, is using some of those funds and then we budgeted funds for (this) year to continue some of these lining projects, so we’re looking at adding that to our money and putting out more projects for (this) year to continue this.”
He said the SRF was fine with that.
Thallemer said that first SRF loan was what triggered the increase in wastewater fees and was all for improvements of pipes, lining, reconstruction and replacement.
“We’ve been able to stretch that almost 100,000 feet, I feel, of repaired infrastructure, and that’s significant,” Thallemer said.
Davison said he was hoping to do another $350,000 to $400,000 worth of lining this year.
• A claim of $1,065,416 from Kokosing Industrial Inc. for the sewer plant expansion, supported by the SRF grant. Thallemer reminded the board it’s a $30 million project.
“We’re roughly at the half-way point,” Davison said.
• A claim of $49,378 from Wessler Engineering, through the SRF, for the engineering during the construction and construction oversight of the plant expansion.
• A claim of $66,310 from Insituform Technologies USA LLC for work completed on the sewer rehabilitation project.
Street Superintendent Jeff Beeler requested the Board of Public Works and Safety on Friday approve a payment application from Michiana Contracting for $290,386.48 for the traffic signal modernization. The Board of Works approved the project at its June 7 meeting and approved the payment application Friday.
Beeler said the city does have a “retainage” for the project that probably will be included in the second payment application to be presented to the Board of Works at its Jan. 17 meeting after a few items are finalized.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer asked if the retainage was sufficient enough to cover the issues with the curb ramp.
City engineer James Emans said he didn’t know. Thallemer asked him if there was concern about the curb height. Emans said there was, and “that portion will be covered at no cost. The contractor will cover that, rework those elevations at no cost to us.”
Thallemer asked if the retainage would be held until that was completed, and Emans said yes. Emans also said he didn’t anticipate there being an issue with the contractor doing that work.
Later in the meeting, Emans presented a proposal from Lawson-Fisher Associates P.C. for engineering design services for the intersection curb ramp design.
“When the project was designed, the designers – Lawson-Fisher – to meet ADA requirements, created a ramp on the southwest corner. That was compliant with ADA. We don’t like it. We’re not satisfied with it,” Emans said. “This proposal is to revisit that.”
He told the Board of Works, “Some of the criteria that they use, to make it so you can walk anywhere on the sidewalks and get to a ramp, it had to be redesigned to what is out there right now. We think we can create some barriers that limit the walk space that opens up opportunities to still be compliant with ADA but to get crosswalks that go both north and east. We’ve asked them to revisit their design and give us an option of what kind of restrictions we would have to build into that type of ramp where there’s two ways to get across.”
Emans said “they did what it was asked,” but the city didn’t notice the crosswalk was altered to be angled because of the restrictions they had.
“It’s somewhat amplified because the contractor failed to build the curbed gutter line along Center Street per the design. That gutter line was supposed to be raised, recognizing that there are going to be people that come from the courthouse side and come south across the road that won’t go to the ramp, they’ll just step up. But it’s a big step because the contractor failed to build it the way it was designed,” Emans said.
He said that part will get fixed if the corner is redone. At the minimum, he said the gutter line will be fixed by the contractor at no cost to the city.
“But instead of having them fix that right now, we would rather look at what this ramp would look like if we could go east and go north. So we asked the designers to come back in and give us a design,” Emans said.
Thallemer said the complexity of the ADA requirements was probably what created the concern from the fact that the curb height needs to be changed. He said it’s probably one of the busiest crosswalks downtown and he wants to make it as pedestrian-friendly as possible.
All crosswalks have to meet ADA specifications or the city risks losing federal funding.
The $4,000 contract with Lawson-Fisher was approved.
In other business, the Board of Works approved:
• An agreement between the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department and Warsaw-Wayne Township. The township will pay the city $75,000 for township residents and children to have access to the parks and parks programs.
Of the $75,000, an amount of $26,000 will be used as a direct rent or lease payment offset for those organizations renting or leasing space in the Pete Thorn Building on North Park Avenue.
Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer explained the Wayne Township Board wanted something to put their money toward. The $26,000 allocated by the township board will help offset the rent for the Senior Center so it can keep its rent low. He said this is the fourth year for the allocation, and this is the second year the township has provided $75,000 to the city, up from $72,500 a couple of years ago.
• A letter of engagement with bakertilly for bakertilly to continue to work on the city’s comprehensive financial plan. The amount is not to exceed $30,000. Thallemer said 2019 was the first year the city had the plan.
“The whole idea here is that we’re projecting (our spending) three to four years in the future and this gives us a big advantage when we sit down and do the budget,” he said.
• A contract with Anderson Property Management to plant and maintain 18 satellite beds and 21 urns at Central Park for $1,888.88 per month for nine months, as requested by Plummer.
• An agreement between Warsaw Community Schools and the city for ice-melting materials, as requested by Beeler.
• A contract for $10,000 with Christopher B. Burke Engineering LLC to conduct a detailed facility and existing stormwater pollution prevention plan audit and assessment for the Warsaw Municipal Airport, as requested by Utilities Superintendent Brian Davison.
“The airport is a little bit unique just because of what they do and some of the chemicals they use for de-icing,” Davison said in explaining why the airport had a contract separate from the rest of the city.
A second contract approved with Burke Engineering for $15,000 will conduct a detailed facility and existing stormwater pollution prevention plan audit for the fire and police departments, Oakwood Cemetery, Wastewater Treatment Utility, Public Works and Parks and Recreation.
• An annual contract for $20,000 with Christopher B. Burke Engineering LLC for Burke Engineering to provide ongoing, on-call services.
• A change order for the sewer rehabilitation project, as requested by Davison. It’s a deduction of $57,867.19.
Davison said, “We removed some work, and moved it into replacement instead of lining. Some of it, pipe diameters changed, and so it was less expensive or more expensive to do. Overall, it’s a deduct of that amount.”
He said it should close out the project, with a final payment and a work completion certificate at the Jan. 17 Board of Works meeting.
He later added that $10 million was borrowed from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) for the sewer rehabilitation projects, but “we ended up with some monies unspent of that original loan amount. So what we’re looking at doing is, to maximize those dollars that we’re able to get at that very low interest rate, is using some of those funds and then we budgeted funds for (this) year to continue some of these lining projects, so we’re looking at adding that to our money and putting out more projects for (this) year to continue this.”
He said the SRF was fine with that.
Thallemer said that first SRF loan was what triggered the increase in wastewater fees and was all for improvements of pipes, lining, reconstruction and replacement.
“We’ve been able to stretch that almost 100,000 feet, I feel, of repaired infrastructure, and that’s significant,” Thallemer said.
Davison said he was hoping to do another $350,000 to $400,000 worth of lining this year.
• A claim of $1,065,416 from Kokosing Industrial Inc. for the sewer plant expansion, supported by the SRF grant. Thallemer reminded the board it’s a $30 million project.
“We’re roughly at the half-way point,” Davison said.
• A claim of $49,378 from Wessler Engineering, through the SRF, for the engineering during the construction and construction oversight of the plant expansion.
• A claim of $66,310 from Insituform Technologies USA LLC for work completed on the sewer rehabilitation project.
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