Repairs slated for May or June
By Bert Lehman
Despite being scheduled for replacement in 2023, part of 15th Street will be repaired this summer.
In a memo to the Clintonville Streets Committee dated March 20, Clintonville Public Works Manager Kray Brown stated he responded to complaints about major potholes on 15th Street on March 13.
“I found the block of 15th [Street] between McKinley [Street] and Roberts Street to have been totally disrupted by rain and snow melt,” Brown stated in the memo. “The base materials were pumping up from traffic. Just walking on the surface was busting the surface up. A large pond was found on the road with [nowhere] for the water to run.”
Brown also stated in the memo that he had inspected 15th Street in December and decided the city could wait until 2023 to replace the street. Both 15th and 16th streets are in the city’s capital improvement project budget to be replaced in 2023.
“Unfortunately, with the winter season we have had, has changed the complexion of things,” Brown stated in the memo. “Bad pavement in the city has gone majorly worse.”
Three options to improve the situation were included in the memo.
The first option called for digging out the clay and installing a gravel base. That would be followed by adding 100 tons of asphalt binder only.
The estimated cost of this option would be $12,000, and the fix would last roughly two to four years.
The second option would also be a two-to-four-year fix, but would include only adding gravel to the street. The estimated cost is $4,500.
The third option included a full rehabilitation of the street, including subgrade, pavement, curb and gutter, and storm sewer replacement. The estimated cost is $90,000. The cost to replace the utilities is unknown.
The matter was discussed when the streets committee met March 28.
“I think that no matter what we look at doing temporarily to this street it will last us the four years,” Brown told the committee.
Brown also told the committee the city could potentially receive state disaster relief funds because of winter storms. He said 15th Street would be eligible.
“We meet the threshold,” Clintonville City Administrator Sharon Eveland said. “It’s already been declared.”
It is not known when the city would be notified if it were approved for disaster relief funds, Eveland said.
She added she researched the Community Development Block Grant Emergency Assistance Program, which would pay all the costs to repair that section of the street, but it does not pay to replace the water and sewer in the ground under the street.
“For us it didn’t make any sense to go through that process for a temporary fix,” Eveland said. “We could have gotten a very nice road out of this, but in four years we’d be tearing the road up again to do the utilities.”
Eveland said she tried to negotiate a special exception to that rule but was unsuccessful.
Another option was available through the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, but the city was ineligible because the damage was not severe enough to shut down the road, Eveland said.
The committee decided to move forward with the first option at an estimated cost of $12,000. The money will come from the road maintenance fund.
The street repairs will be made in May or June.