City officials discussed a potential municipal buildings bond package to address maintenance needs for city buildings during Monday’s work session meeting. City officials also discussed this year’s street improvement projects throughout the city. Pictured is Mayor Eddie Sundquist. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

City officials discussed a potential municipal buildings bond that will be presented by the city administration next week, as well as various street improvement updates during this week’s City Council work session.

MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS BOND

Mayor Eddie Sundquist told the City Council on Monday that his administration is continuing to put together a municipal buildings bond package for City Council members to consider. While Sundquist has floated the idea of a city bond to address maintenance repairs for city buildings over the past few months, the details of the potential bond package have not yet been disclosed to the City Council.

“There is a need for a new roof on this building, as well as a couple other buildings, and then some additional gap financing for the fleet maintenance building. We are working with Jeff and should have, I believe at the next work session, an overview of the total financials,” Sundquist said. “That will be coming next week. We’ll present it all to you guys and we’ll ask for additional feedback on it.”

In addition to a potential bond package, Sundquist said the city has received $1 million from the Financial Restructure Board to be used for the city’s fleet maintenance building. He informed the City Council that the city is currently in the process of transferring the awarded money into its bank account to be used for the project.

STREET IMPROVEMENT UPDATE

Public Works Committee Chairman Randy Daversa, R-At Large, told City Council members that a concern was presented to the committee by Melissa Paterniti, a local resident, regarding school zone safety and issues with speeding in school zones throughout the city. Daversa said Paterniti suggested additional crosswalk signs be installed to warn drivers of pedestrian crossing locations. While Daversa said the city would have to reach out to state authorities for some of the locations, he said the Public Works Committee would do its best to move forward with Paterniti’s concern.

One of the intersections discussed was the intersection of Baker Street and Hazeltine Avenue. Daversa reported that Mark Roetzer, acting director of Public Works, told the committee that the county is planning on doing something with the intersection at its own expense. While final details for the county’s plan for the intersection have not yet been released, Daversa said the county’s plan should help address issues with traffic congestion at the intersection during school hours.

Sundquist also provided an update regarding school zones in the city.

“There’s just an update from the Safe Streets for All,” he said. “We’re just waiting for the final draft contract from the federal government for us to try to move forward with that design phase, so be on the lookout for that.”

In addition to the City Council’s discussion on school zones, city officials discussed the anticipated list of street construction projects for 2023, which Sundquist said should be provided to City Council members by the end of the week so that the city can finalize the list by next week.

Daversa explained that another initiative the Public Works Committee is working on is raising various manholes throughout the city up to grade. He explained that many of the manholes are “really low,” resulting in multiple public complaints by city residents.

“We discussed with Mark, and we’re going to bring some of them up to grade, especially the one that concerns me is on Buffalo Street and Allen,” he said. “That one is really bad, and I know that fire engines down there really get rattled when they go over that one…That’s an initiative that we are going to be looking at, and we’re going to see some raising of the manholes around the city.”