(Estherville)— The Estherville City Council Monday evening awarded a bid on a storm sewer project. The council awarded the low bid of $455,000, well under the engineer’s estimate of $505,000. City Administrator Penny Clayton says the project will help address a drainage issue in the downtown area during heavy rain events…
“This is the project that installs new storm sewer from basically just shy of Central Avenue on North 3rd Street up towards the water plant and then it goes west along 1st Avenue North over to about, just about North 1st Street where it will tie into improvements we’ve already made that discharge, then, to the river. In addition I think we’ll be at, it’s about 1,000 feet of new concrete pipe and then we’ll have one new intake. We are also going to do a sanitary sewer line replacement to the water plant as part of this project as well. We are really anxiously awaiting what effect this has on drainage at that intersection. I think it should improve dramatically but we’re also hoping that it has residual effect on the water backup in the downtown during heavy rain events.”
In other business, the Estherville City Council Monday evening approved the third reading of a proposed increase in electric rates; and they approved the second reading of a proposal to make South 17th Street from 1st Avenue South to 3rd Avenue South a one-way street on a temporary basis while construction is underway at the nearby ELC stadium complex. The vote didn’t come without some discussion, though. Councilman David Hovenga says he’s heard some concern from constituents…
“I think people are concerned that during the grace period there’s going to be somebody go the wrong way.”
There was also some concern about the possible one way street becoming permanent. The vote to approve the second reading was 4-0, with one council member absent.
