Foul weather didn’t
do much to dampen folks’ enthusiasm on Saturday as they put their backs into
it for a neighbor, as they always do, in Rebuilding Together Duneland.
That was the
impression of Chesterton Town Council Member Jim Ton, R-1st, who took a
moment at the end of Monday’s meeting to report on this year’s edition.
“Last Saturday was
a wonderful day,” Ton said. “In spite of the cool temperatures and rain, the
spirit of the community was very evident in many, many ways. In Rebuilding
Together ‘15, 500 people assisted their neighbors in the true spirit of
volunteerism. This fact is only one fact among many that make this a special
place to live.”
Downtown Sidewalk
Contract Awarded
Earlier in the
evening, at its regular monthly meeting, the Redevelopment Commission voted
5-0 to award the contract for the Downtown sidewalk project to R V Sutton
Inc. of Liberty Township.
Project specs: new
curb and sidewalk on the north side of Broadway, adjacent to Thomas
Centennial Park, between South Calumet Road and the Duneland Chamber of
Commerce parking lot.
R V Sutton
submitted the lowest of two quotes: $67,900. Walsh & Kelly Inc. of Griffith
had quoted a price of $71,550.
R V Sutton’s quote
may have been the lowest but it was considerably higher than Street
Commissioner John Schnadenberg’s
original estimate of $30,000, and even that figure--as he candidly admitted
at the commission’s
February meeting--was on the high side.
That’s
because the curb in question--possibly installed before World War II--was
actually poured as part of the concrete roadway and will have to be saw-cut
free. The road is something like six to eight inches thick there and
Schnadenberg is expecting the job to be labor-intensive. So, evidently, is R
V Sutton.
The New Signal
In other business,
Town Engineer Mark O’Dell updated the commission on another project: the
replacement and upgrade of the traffic signal at the intersection of Indian
Boundary Road and North Calumet Road, funded by an 80/20 grant awarded to
the town by the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.
Status: “They’re
coming along.”
There were two
change orders, though, which O’Dell duly submitted to the commission: one
was a deduct, the other an add.
Deduct $1,317.20:
using the less expensive wireless detection system in place of the clunkier
loop detection system.
Add $10,144: using
the more expensive jack-and-bore method to install conduit beneath the CSX
trackage--at the railroad’s
insistence--instead of directional-boring.
Total impact on the
original contract price of $251,593.30: $8,826.80. The new contract price:
$261,737.3, an increase of 3.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the
caissons for the foundations of the new signal have been drilled, one of
them to a depth of 21 feet, the others to 13 feet. The caissons for the old
signal, O’Dell noted, were only seven
feet deep. Those caissons--fully a yard in diameter--will later be filled
with concrete to make the signal very nearly a permanent feature of the
geology. “That’s a lot of concrete.”
The project’s specs
include the installation of a new LED signal, a new controller box, new
conduit wiring below ground, a battery backup system, and an ornamental post
and mast arms.
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