By: Donovan W. Mann – donovanm@977thebolt.com
Humboldt, IA – Council motions to approve the street work being done in Humboldt this year approves the bid and plan.
The city council for Humboldt is approving just under $3 million in street work to be done this year. City Administrator Travis Goedken provides details on the motion and approval by council.
The work in question is the official approval of the large scale street project council budgeted for. “When council had budget talks for fiscal year ’21 they wanted to do a large scale street project” Goedken says. He says that city staff put together a project that had roughly a $3 million estimated price tag. $2.5 million of this estimate would be bonded for by the city and the other half million would come from the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) collected by the city.
The city administrator says that one bid was received for the work and the price is favorable for the city. The one bid received and placed before council was from Blacktop Service Company in Humboldt. The bid cost came in at roughly $2.56 million. This means that the work will be mainly covered by the bonding. According to Goedken this is a positive for the city because with COVID-19 affect businesses the LOST is expected to take about a 20% hit.
The bid coming in under the estimated cost is a result of favorable unit prices for the city. Goedken says there were a number of unit prices that came in under estimated. He says the “prime example” is chip seal. The city administrator says the estimated unit price for chip seal was $12 per square mile, with Blacktop Service coming in just over three dollars per square mile. Goedken says the city will be looking into adding additional work to the 2020 portion of the street project as a result of the favorable unit pricing.
The Humboldt City Council approved the street work to be done during their first city council meeting of July. The approvals include a resolution for the street project plan and the acceptance of the bid from Blacktop Service.