Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Rebuilding Together Praised at Chesterton Town Council meeting

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By KEVIN NEVERS

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 commissions 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 railroads 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.

 

 

Posted 54/30/2015

 
 

 

 

 

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