City looks at future water, street projectsby Nathan Arneal The North Bend City Council received updates on many projects, both present and future, from Julie Odgen of JEO Consulting at its Nov. 5 meeting. To start the meeting, Alex Legge was sworn in as a council member. Legge, who has served on the council before, fill the vacancy left by Rod Scott, who became mayor after the death of previous mayor Dean Lux. Bart Bosco was appointed president of the council. Odgen gave a preview of a Highway 79 project a few years down the road. During the summer of 2022, NDoT is scheduled to be working on Main Street. From the Platte River bridge to the railroad tracks will be milled and overlaid. From the tracks north through downtown to the north end of town will be completely removed and reconstructed, with the exception of the Highway 30 intersection, which will remain so that road can stay open. Odgen said they would likely work on one or two blocks at a time. The project includes the downtown parking stalls and the first two or three feet of sidewalk. “When we do downtown projects,” Ogden said, “we tell downtown businesses to start saving a year, year and a half ahead because it’s going to hurt for those three or four months that we’re in the area. Even if the work isn’t right in front of their business, there are going to be people that aren’t going to come.” Side street parking and sidewalk access to Main Street businesses would still be available during construction. Odgen said if there’s any work the city would like to do on its water and sewer lines under Main Street, that this would be a good time to do it while the pavement is torn out. She also said designers would look at increasing the angle of the parking stalls on Main Street, which would make the street wider and safer but would cause a couple of spots to be lost. Odgen also addressed the water pressure situation at Pioneer Lake. The water main at Pioneer Lake splits near the south entrance into three dead-end lines. “That’s why dead ends are not recommended as part of the water system,” she said. The recommended flow to be provide enough water in a fire situation is 750 gallons per minute. Recent testing at the end of the Phase 3 dead end near Lot 53 showed 250 GPM. Odgen presented the council a few different options. The first, dubbed the “small loop” option, would connect the dead end at the end of Phase 3 to the dead end on the middle peninsula of Pioneer Lake near Lot 24. This would create a loop by boring under the lake at an approximate coset of $99,840. It would bring the pressure at Lot 53 to approximately 626 GPM. A “medium loop” option includes connecting all three dead ends, again by boring under the lake. It would cost an estimated $196,160 and bring the pressure at Lot 53 to about 759 GPM. Ogden recommended going with the medium loop option. “I realize it’s more expensive, but you’re disrupting that area once and you’re done,” she said. “You’ll get both loops and you’re addressing more than one low-flow problem.” In other council business: • North Bend Emergency Manager Waylon Fischer asked to form a committee with a couple of council members to start preparing for the next flood. Dan Minarick and Ken Streff volunteered for the committee. Fischer asked the city to apply for a pair or radios from Dodge County. The radios would be part of county-wide communications system in case cell towers go down or are busy. He also suggested the city look into a mass calling system like Tiger Talk, the system the school uses to get messages to district patrons. Tiger Talk was used heavily during the flood to get necessary information out.
<<Back to the front page |