Charles City Council moves one step forward on sewer projects and one step back on tree removal

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Council approved waterworks projects during its regular meeting on Monday, May 1, but will be going back to the drawing board for ash tree removal.

At the meeting, the council held a public hearing on four bids for the 2023 Sanitary Sewer Lining Project, which will line 3,300 feet of sewer main from Riverside Drive to North Grand. The council accepted the low bid of $195,396.75 from Municipal Pipe and Tool for the project, accepting only the base bid as adding alternates would run the project over budget.

In other sewer work, the council also approved a $42,061.39 bid from HydroKlean to perform monoform repairs to six sanitary sewer manholes along Main Street.

The council members also considered their options for repairing boilers for the Water Resource Recovery Facility. Superintendent Dan Rimrod had previously recommended the repair of one of the two boilers in the facility, but was instructed by the council to seek out a bid for the repair of both boilers to see if it would be worth working on both at once.

With the quote for repairing one boiler coming in at $11,028 and both at $20,686, the savings were determined to be negligible and the council agreed with the original recommendation of repairing just one boiler, with a plan to replace the second one when the time comes.

While the council approved several bids for water-related work, the  2023 tree removal project will need to be rebid. Each of the three bids received for the project was rejected due to calculation errors inflating the quote or procedural mistakes deeming them non-responsive.

As a result, the council moved to reject all three bids and rebid the project at a future meeting.

In other business, Mayor Dean Andrews proclaimed May as National Historic Preservation Month, recognizing the Charles City Historic Preservation Commission for the work it does in promoting the city’s historical heritage.

Andrews also proclaimed this week as Youth Week in honor of the Elks Lodge, which is hosting a meal for kids this Sunday along with recognizing several high school awards winners.

The council also approved this year’s insurance package with EMC. At $525,759.48, the rate is a 14% increase due in large part to the increase in valuation in city property. In addition, the new plan adds cyber insurance to the package. It was noted that the city’s worker comp rates actually went down due to good performance.

“That helped lessen the blow a little bit,” said Andrews.

Finally, the council approved a street closure request from Soifer Family McDonalds for the annual Kids Day event as part of the community’s Fourth of July celebration. The 300 block of N. Jackson, Kelly and Blunt streets surrounding Central Park will be closed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to accommodate the kids activities and parade.

Neighbors in the surrounding area have been notified about the event and offered a neighborly dessert voucher for their trouble.

“Nobody’s mad with an ice cream cone in their hand,” said Emily Garden, Soifer marketing supervisor.