[APRIL 27, 2006]
It's come down to final details in agreements with
the engineering firm leading the renovation of Fifth Street and an
intergovernmental agreement between the city of Lincoln and Logan
County. Lisa Krammer from Hanson Engineers, Springfield, attended
last week's council session to answer and resolve any remaining
questions on the most recent modified contract.
The county highway committee did not approve the intergovernmental
agreement at their meeting this past month. City attorney Bill Bates
said to Krammer that the city could not enter into an agreement with
Hanson until the county and city have an agreement. The earliest
that could possibly take place at the city level would be in an
adjourned session May 28, one week after the county's next voting
session, which is May 21.
The word received from the county was that the contract needed
wording to show that the city would be pursuing and taking
responsibility for their portion of the $5 million project.
The project can be paid for out of federal funds that go into an
account for such work, but it would take many more years before
there was enough in the account. The city will be aggressively
pursuing specific funding that can be earmarked for just that
project, city engineer Mark Mathon said after the meeting.
Currently $772,000 is received through a federal transportation
fund recently released by the state of Illinois. Those funds, which
were applied for five years ago, are to be split 80 percent to the
county and 20 percent to the city for the project.
Of the anticipated $5 million project costs, the county is
responsible for 25 percent, which is $1.25 million, and the city for
75 percent, $3.75 million. The city will be responsible for finding
an estimated $4,845,600 more in funds for the project.
Bates addressed terms of the Hanson contract. He would not
recommend that the city accept portions of the contract that were
worded to limit Hanson's liability to the amount of the $1 million
insurance. In particular the liability is in relation to unmarked
utilities. Bates said they could agree to that wording for the
unmarked utilities that the city controls, but not for the other
utilities that are not the city's and are marked by JULIE. "Let them
call JULIE and take the responsibility," he said.
Alderman Buzz Busby said he'd like it out. "We've had a problem
with this before," he said, and he believed that the lawsuit
settled.
Krammer said that Hanson prefers this in all their contracts, but
he said, "We certainly want to do this work for the city of
Lincoln."
The revisions to the contract were agreed to on the spot.
Steve Klemm presented a request from the Elks to have their third
annual Crippled Children's Fundraiser downtown once again. The
fundraiser is held in early fall near the Alley-Bi in downtown
Lincoln.
This year's hours have been shortened. Klemm said, "It's hard to
get people uptown early in the day." The event is scheduled to begin
at 4 p.m. and last until 11:45 on Sept. 16.
Several issues of disturbances from last year were discussed:
broken beer bottles, a motorcyclist that did a loud peal-out and
music that went over the midnight curfew by several minutes.
Klemm said it was one individual, who isn't expected to come
back, on the motorcycle and that they would be prepared to call
police for any such incident this year. The broken bottles would be
from people that brought beer out from establishments; the
fundraiser sells beer by the cup. They would try to tighten security
on that. And the entertainment time has been shortened to 11:45 p.m.
This should eliminate a run-over, should an encore be demanded as it
was last year.
Alderman Wanda Lee Rohlfs pointed out that this takes place
during the Railsplitter. It may draw people away from that event.
Klemm thought they would be different crowds. He also said that
they looked at other weekends, but there are a lot of fall festivals
and any weekend in September would be in conflict with someone
else's event.
The car show has been eliminated. Food service will begin at 4
p.m. and there will be music until 11:45 p.m.
"We're trying to do something good here and bring some people
into Lincoln," he said.
Generally funds raised at the event stay local. Last year the
timing was just right to be able to help children in Louisiana
affected by Hurricane Katrina. The funds were sent there and used
buy school supplies, books and such. The year before it helped buy a
special wheelchair for a local girl. The funds will be kept local
again this year, he said.
