Allen County commissioners accepted the lone bids for two road projects in the Humboldt area, totaling just over $300,000, but rejected a third bid because of its high cost.
The winning bidder for each — the only bidder — was SE-KAN Asphalt Services, Gas.
The county will spend $119,600 to improve 4,000 feet of Delaware Road, known locally as Tank Farm Road, just southeast of Humboldt. The road carries heavy trucks loaded with rock bound for Monarch Cement’s plant from quarries east of U.S. 169. A leveling course will be laid and then overlaid with two inches of asphalt.
The second contract, for $183,045, will pay for milling of 2.5 lane miles to a half inch depth to smooth roughness on old U.S. 169. All together, 4.3 miles will be overlaid with a half inch of smooth seal asphalt from Humboldt’s south city limit to the Allen-Neosho counties line, just north of the Neosho River.
A third bid, to overlay the 4.3 miles of the old highway with two inches of asphalt, was turned aside because of its high cost, estimated at $414,818.
Bill King, director of Public Works, told commissioners he carried forward about $500,000 in his budget for road maintenance and associated work and was not eager to expend it all in two projects.
King said he thought the old U.S. 169 improvement would hold up to traffic for five to eight years.
THE COUNTY received notification that it will receive an 80-20 grant from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to purchase a new van for transportation of elder residents.
County Clerk Sherrie Riebel said estimated cost was $54,171.25, meaning the county’s share would be $10,834.25, the state’s $43,337.
The current van is three years old, Riebel said, and “won’t last too much longer.” It runs five days a week and serves residents in Iola, Humboldt and Moran.
Also, she said KDHE approved a 12-month van operations grant of $4,000, an amount the county has received the past several years.
RON HOLMAN, courthouse maintenance supervisor, said 30 new park benches would arrive soon and will be placed near the bandstand. The eight-foot benches were purchased for $300 each, a total of $9,000, with a grant from the tire recycling division of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment paying half the cost.
The new benches are made of recycled vehicle tires and will replace 11 16-foot benches that have deteriorated. The old benches will be used elsewhere by the city.
Commissioners approved a $1,378 bid from Kitchens & More, LaHarpe, for new cabinets in the Extension office, the lowest of three bids for the project. They deferred the purchase of new handicap-accessible doors for the Iola Senior Center, 204 N. Jefferson Ave., until Holman can obtain information on installation costs.
SOME CEILING tiles in the Allen County Emergency Response Center, 410 N. State St., are unsightly and need replaced. Angie Murphy, dispatch center director, said the project would cost about $200.
“Some of the tile is damaged and other places it is stained,” Murphy said.
Terry Call, an ambulance service assistant who is experienced in building trades, will replace the tiles.
“It won’t take long,” he said.
In other business, Call reported that he and Scott Reeder of Public Works recently spent about 10 days cataloging road signs throughout the county, including those in place to direct and control traffic and others that identify roads and streets.
“We have 4,341 signs, including 475 that have high-intensity finishes,” Call said.
New federal laws requires all road signs to have upgraded higher reflective surfaces by 2015, which means the county will have to spend about $155,000 on new signs, at $40 each. The price tag doesn’t include signs that might have to be replaced because of vandalism or theft.
King said the new signs would begin to be installed in 2012 or 2013.
