 |
The crystal ball cleared a bit regarding Sprague Avenue on Tuesday night. In the near future, it will be plowed along with the rest of Spokane Valley’s streets. However, it will still be one-way west of University Road.
The Spokane Valley City Council, at its regular meeting, authorized an emergency contract with Poe Asphalt Paving Inc. for the company’s workers to be ready to operate city-owned machinery for snow-plowing operations. The resolution couldn’t come soon enough, as the city’s contract with Spokane County expires next week.
“What a great benefit to our city,” said Council Member Bill Gothmann, who praised Neil Kersten, city public works director, for putting the contract together. “I really can’t thank Neil and his staff enough.”
The two-phase deal involves the city setting aside $280,000 to cover expenses for snow removal for the rest of this year and another $640,000 in next year’s budget for the period between Jan. 1 and May 30. The costs are based on the hopes it will be a moderate snow season, but Kersten said there is another $500,000 set aside to cover any additional expenses.
Poe has nine staff members ready to plow city streets, and the city has two trained persons on staff that can also operate equipment. There are six additional Poe workers that are also ready to be brought in to deal with instances of sustained heavy snowfall when crews need to be rotated.
Kersten said the arrangement is good for the city’s budget.
“It’s better than having people on staff eight hours a day whether it’s snowing or not,” he said.
The next step, he added, is getting the crews familiar with city’s roads and the trucks and plows purchased in July from the Washington state Department of Transportation. The city has also leased space from Waste Management to store the equipment.
“We’re going to be running around not knowing what we’re doing exactly,” Kersten said of the next few weeks. WSDOT, however, will be sending over personnel to help train city and Poe workers.
Mayor Richard Munson also expressed gratitude to Kersten and pride in how the city responded after council members were surprised last December by a phone message from county Commissioner Mark Richard that the county was going to sever its contract for snow removal.
“We we're told, ‘Don’t worry, you can take care of it,’” Munson said. “Well, it was a lot of work, and we went out and did it.”
The council also got a report from staff on how much it would cost to convert Sprague and Appleway to two, two-way arterials between Argonne and University roads. That conversion alone would cost $5.3 million.
The total cost of changing the streets back to two-way and extending Appleway to Sullivan Road would be $35.4 million. The majority of that amount, $24 million, would be for extending Appleway alone, said Scott Kuhta, senior city planner.“And that’s assuming the county is going to let us have the right-of-way,”
Munson said. Spokane County currently owns the property, and negotiations continue to try to acquire the land for transportation purposes.
None of those numbers – which Kersten described as “soft” -- include the cost to build a new city hall at a proposed city center at University City. That’s a separate issue that would have to be funded, most likely, with voter approval for a bond sale.
Matching state or federal dollars, which are in short supply, would be needed to do any work on Sprague or Appleway.
|
|
By
Mike Huffman
