City Council Briefs
Sidewalk funds OK’d for Pleasant Street
Tonganoxie City Council unanimously voted at its May 29 meeting to approve the $151,646 bid to begin the construction of the Pleasant Street sidewalk.
Butch Rodgers, city superintendent, told the council there was a need to start the construction rolling before the 2007-’08 school year starts. Rodgers said any delays could push back the construction start time to sometime after mid June and possibly delay the entire project.
“I just wanted to get the ball rolling so we can get (schoolchildren) walking down the sidewalk when school starts,” Rodgers said.
Under the bid the city would be in charge of more than $16,000 of the work, including driveways, the grass, traffic control and relocating a tree. Meadows Construction would take care of the rest.
Brian Kingsley, of BG Consultants, the city’s engineering firm, said having the city as the main contractor and then subcontracting to Meadows was the most effective use of funding.
“You are saving construction dollars; you are saving the overhead on markups on the subcontractors. I think it’s a really good thing that you have someone capable of doing this work,” he said.
The council voted on March 12 to pay for the sidewalk and not use money from a benefit district to fund the project.
Fireworks stand receives permit OK
Tonganoxie residents won’t have to travel far to buy fireworks for this year’s Independence Day. The council voted to approve a fireworks stand permit for Uncle Sam. The stand will be in the parking lot of 886 North Star Court.
Ordinance approval puts tax in place
The council unanimously approved the ordinance that will impose the citywide three-quarters of a percent sales tax that will help fund the design and construction of a new Tonganoxie swimming pool.
The levy will take effect on Oct. 1 of this year and continue to be collected until Sept. 30, 2017.
The sales tax will raise the estimated $2.9 million needed for the new pool.
On May 14, the city signed a contract with Sullivan Palmer Architects and Bohl and Associates for the design and construction of the pool.
Barring any setbacks, construction for the new pool will begin by the end of the year.
Water pumps arrive
City Administrator Mike Yanez informed the council that the two new 13-horsepower water pumps were installed at the wastewater treatment plant on May 24.
The new 825-gallon per minute pumps will replace the two defective 750-gallon per minute pumps that broke before the heavy rains that caused major flooding in parts of Leavenworth County last month.
Gorman Rupp, which manufactured the pumps, agreed to replace the defective pumps only at the cost of shipping the two broken pumps back to the manufacturer.