Officials from Clearwater Twp. and Silver Creek Twp. met Tuesday evening to talk about moving ahead with two shared major road projects.

 

And it looks like both townships agree it is likely both projects will move ahead in the near future.

 

It was the second meeting between the two townships in the past month, and it focused on upgrades to Elder Ave. and portions of 150th Street.

 

Clearwater Twp. had held two meetings in the past two weeks about establishing a long-term road project priority list. At the June 12 meting, Clearwater supervisors voted to allocate $15,000 for engineering on a portion of 150th Street, a project that could cost $600,000 to $700,000. But it was contingent on Silver Creek contributing.

 

“We would like to pursue that ASAP,” Clearwater Supervisor Bill Langenbacher told members of the Silver Creek Town Board Tuesday. “We know it’s a long term project. It’s going to take two, three and maybe four years.”

Clearwater Supervisor Scott Miller said it’s been a topic of discussion at recent township meetings.

 

“The residents were looking for some numbers. That’s why we felt we needed to get engineering costs so we can look at the time frame,” he said.

 

Silver Creek Supervisor Chris Klein said he wanted to be sure it was money well-spent.

 

“If we’re going to put  money into engineering, we need to know that the plan is used at some point in time,” he said.

 

Langenbacher said the immediate goal was to get an estimate of what the total engineering costs would be for the project - not to spend money on engineering yet. He figured the cost could be $20,000 or more.

“This is to gather some numbers,” he said. “If they’re out of this world, we might not go ahead.”

 

Silver Creek Supervisor Mike Ludenia said the township has been working with the engineering firm Hakanson Anderson on its projects.

 

Langenbacher said he spoke with Shane Nelson from that firm and was told Nelson could look at the project in the next few weeks and offer an engineering estimate, but not a total project cost estimate.

“He’d be able to take a look if we requested,” he said.

 

Klein said it sounded like a plan.

 

“I don’t see a problem proceeding with getting an engineer’s estimate,” he said. “But as far as engineering starting on it, from our budget standpoint, it would be better if we waited until the first of the year.”

Neither township felt the actual engineering would need to start immediately, but at least they would know the up-front cost for engineering.

 

“It would be important to have those numbers by the end of the year, or at least by January so when we have our March meeting we can start putting money away,” said Miller.

 

The officials agreed to have one representative from each township meet with Nelson and review the 150th Street project.

 

After another lengthy discussion about Elder Ave., the townships decided to have a contractor give a cost estimate for grading and ditch work from Co. Rd. 75 to 160th Street. They also agreed to have Nelson look at an engineering estimate for the blacktop section in Hasty that has drainage issues. 

 

The goal is to have the road improvements done in 2018 and chip-sealing done in 2019.

 

The supervisors agreed to have another meeting together in August, once Nelson has had time to put together an engineer’s estimate for both projects.