The Clintonville Street Committee discussed what to do with the walking bridge near the city’s community center between Main Street and Hemlock Street at their meeting held Wednesday night.
The bridge is considered to be in poor condition and estimates to rehab it could total about $75,000, which is an investment that members of the committee had difficulty envisioning.
“We have a brand new Main Street bridge that’s about 100-feet away or so, 150-feet away,” said Alderperson Steven Kettenhoven. “I just don’t see spending $75,000 to repair something that folks can walk another 100 feet to get across the river.”
Alderperson Lance Bagstad echoed those thoughts, considering the city’s current need to spend money on deteriorating roads.
“If we start dumping $75,000 into a walking bridge that in essence goes from a parking lot to a parking lot and have a variety of pot holes in various places that people have called about, nobody’s called me about the walking bridge,” Bagstad said. “People have called me about pot holes in the street.”
Because the fencing on the bridge is believed to be a safety issue, Bagstad said action should be taken swiftly.
“We now basically stated there is a potential liability, so we need a gate across there probably tomorrow and probably, as soon as possible, find out how much it’s going to cost to remove it.”
The bridge will close immediately on July 6. In a unanimous decision, the street committee will now recommend to the Clintonville Common Council to look into removal costs.
Ninth Street Sidewalk Nears Total Completion
Clintonville Public Works Manager Kray Brown provided an update to the Clintonville Street Committee regarding the 9th Street sidewalk repair, stating that the sidewalk is completed.
Brown added that the city still must wait 28 days in order to finish the entire project, which should officially conclude at the end of July after the concrete cures and a polymer overlay is applied.
He also informed the committee that the project that had a bid of $65,915 to complete will come in way under that amount.
To this point, the city received an invoice of $46,737.25 with only the polymer overlay still to be completed.