The City of Vandalia is getting closer to moving forward with the Safe Routes to School sidewalk project.
In July of last year, the City of Vandalia announced they had received $200,000 in grant money for the Safe Routes to School project. But, the City of Vandalia then had to get right of way agreements with all of the property owners on the path. At Tuesday’s meeting, the Vandalia City Council approved $2,700 to acquire the rights from First Presbyterian Church on West Fillmore Street. The City of Vandalia approved the acceptance of a donation from Walt Barenfanger of right of way on his property and also the acceptance of 3.41 acres of land, donated by Barenfanger to the City of Vandalia. As for the next steps in the Safe Routes to School, City Administrator LaTisha Paslay says she now has a checklist of 14 items that consist of documents and reports that are required for each of the 12 parcels they received the easement or right of way for the project. Once that is complete, she will meet with the Illinois Department of Transportation to have the documents certified. And, then once certified, the project will be ready to be placed on the State’s bid letting. Meanwhile, several Aldermen praised Paslay for her work in the arduous process of getting the property easements and right of ways approved.
In other business, Paslay reported to the Vandalia City Council that on the Fillmore to Washington waterman project on Burtschi Street it was discovered they are not going to be able to bore underneath Fillmore Street due to the vast number of utilities underneath. So, they will have to “open cut” Fillmore Street. The City Council agreed for the contractor to move forward with that and the change order for the project will be approved at the September 19th City Council meeting. The change order will be an increase of $4,570.75. Paslay also explained that two previous change orders on the project had a combined total decrease of $3,158.75, so the project is just $1,412 over the total projected cost, which compares well with similar projects.
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