BEATRICE – The Beatrice City Council has approved a major asphalt reconstruction project for this season….along West Scott Street between Sumner and Sherman Streets. Constructors Inc. gets the contract, totaling almost $513,000.
Councilman Ted Fairbanks voted no on the project over the lack of what he says is a key part of the work.
“My question is has been my question every time we’ve done something on Scott Street. We’re not putting curb and gutter on it…and it keeps breaking away because there’s no edge to it. I want to know why we’re going to spend another half-a-million bucks on this thing and not put curb and gutter on it….because it won’t hold without curb and gutter.”
In the past, the city has tried patching the road and made use of a double armor coat process to improve the surface. City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer describes the solution this time around.
“We’re actually going to do the base of the road. We haven’t touched the base of the road in fifteen years, that I know of. The base of the road will be the same concrete base that we put down on Second Street. We also used it out on Sargent Street recently when we did that project up by Neapco (Manufacturing). We put down a slurry mix with the dirt and it turns into a hardened concrete. At that point, they’ll come back and put a four-inch lift of asphalt, on top of that.”
Tempelmeyer says the reason curb and gutter work was not included in the project was its cost. Council President Rick Clabaugh said he was disappointed that the city only received one bid for the project.
Water line replacement along that stretch is also going on, prior to the street construction.
Not far from Scott Street, officials have prohibited parking on both sides of Bluff Street, from Helen to West Court. That’s an access to the West Scott Ball field complex….the site of numerous tournaments and leagues. Bluff Street was resurfaced with improved shoulders, the past year.
