- I call to order this regular meeting of the Board of Public Works this Tuesday, January 27th of 2026.
- First up on our agenda, we have messages from board members. Do we have any messages from the board
- this evening? Quickly, thank you. I'm not sure which city department was responsible for the cleanup
- of Kirkwood after the championship game.
- I don't know if it was parks or sanitation with the street department. Public works. Public works,
- very good. I just wanted to say I drove through Kirkwood about 9 a.m. the next day and there was hardly
- a sign of anything happening. They did an amazing job and the community thanks. Perfect.
- I will second that comment. I also took a little walk on my way into the office down Kirkwood just to
- make sure it was still there, and everything was in very nice order. Also, of course, I'm sure Adam
- you'll fill us in on all the details during your staff report today, of course, a huge
- Gratitude to everyone who has been working to recover from this major snowstorm from, of course, Public
- Works Department, Adam, Joe, the entire crew who was out there for days on end, still out there cleaning
- things up. I really appreciate that. And also all the other city departments that have to jump in and
- lend a hand.
- in those situations, I think that we're very fortunate to have the crews who work so hard that we have,
- and I'm very appreciative, also appreciative of those residents who have chipped in to help each other.
- I am sure many people have helped their neighbor or their child dig out of the snow and just appreciate
- the helping hands all around in getting cleaned up after the storm.
- Next up, we have petitions and remonstrances. If anyone would like to make a public comment about something
- that is not on our agenda this evening, now is the opportunity to do so. If you have joined us on Zoom,
- you can use the raised hand function or the chat function to let us know you'd like to make a comment.
- And if you're here in the room, you are welcome to approach one of the microphones here at the table.
- We only have city staff or petitioners on Zoom right now. All right. Seeing none.
- Next we have the consent agenda under the consent agenda we have resolution 2026-07 mobile vendor planted
- Bloomington resolution 2026-08 mobile vendor community kitchen service agreement with cats and payroll.
- Do we have any items that need to be removed from the consent agenda this evening? None for me.
- None for me. Thank you.
- Do we have any public comment on anything within the consent agenda this evening? No. All right,
- seeing none, is there a motion on the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda for
- tonight's meeting of January 27, 2026. Second. All right, I will call the roll. Caron? Aye. Roach? Aye.
- Cox-Dekard? Aye. Motion passes.
- Next we have New Business. First under New Business is LPA Consulting Contract Amendment 2 with WSP
- Inc. for West 2nd Street Modernization Project. Yeah, Kendall Kenoki, City of Wilmington Engineering.
- Thanks for hearing me tonight. This is a contract amendment that essentially is capturing what I've
- broken down into four different categories of design work that wasn't captured in our original contract.
- So there was
- original contract in 2022 and then that was amended in 2023 to provide right-of-way services, so there's
- no change to the design portion of that. But as we worked through our design documents, this is an NDOT
- project, federally funded, there's a lot of requirements. We ran into a lot of additional work that
- was required to get through NDOT approvals, specifically with NDOT's ADA compliance and their technical
- advisory committee that they have that you just have to go to and then you have to go to again, you
- have to go to again. And our consultant really went above and beyond preparing exhibits and going through
- this very onerous process that we did not anticipate when we prepared the contract. Additionally, the
- city passed new stormwater ordinance. And as part of our project design, we were attempting to provide
- as much detention as possible and we were doing different analyses.
- to see what was possible with this project and what wasn't. And I think we've come up with really good
- solutions for that. But again, that portion of work was a bit beyond the additional scope of this original
- design contract. And then the third was just some additional redesign to coordinate with some of our
- other projects that were going on, specifically at Hopewell West, just making sure we had a seamless
- tie-in with that project.
- That's kind of the three areas at the top there. And then additionally, we're going to do some survey
- of what was built out at Hopewell East to make sure we're tying into everything beautifully there and
- we don't have much more expensive issues during construction or knowing ahead of time. So that's really
- all compiled into this contract amendment here in front of you today. Happy to answer any questions
- on this. Thank you. Questions from the board on this item?
- You can't see Elizabeth, so I'll let you see. Thank you. You're just going to have to mimic her through
- the entire meeting. All right. Any public comments on this item? Seeing none. Is there a motion? I move
- that we approve the LPA consulting contract Amendment 2 with WSP for the West Second Street Modernization Project.
- Second. All right, I will call the roll. Corrine? Aye. Roach? Aye. Cox-Dekard? Aye. Motion passes. Next
- is the LPA consultant contract with Crossroad Engineers PC for preliminary engineering at Hopewell South
- project. Kettle Kanoke Engineering Department again. So this is a design contract for
- Hopewell South, which is currently being considered by the Plan Commission and City Council for a rezone
- to PUD. So the intent is to provide additional residential housing as well as some possible commercial
- institutional uses. So this specific design contract is for all the infrastructure and the subdivision
- that will be required for this project. So that would be roadway design,
- utilities, drainage, doing all the survey work, subdividing the property and any associated work with
- that with permitting, getting things built. I did clarify it does not include the actual design
- or construction of the individual homes themselves. The current plan is to kind of have a menu of homes
- that builders can select from and then they'll have everything ready and just go out and build. But
- we're going to prepare the site for these homes.
- There's still kind of some unknown as to what will be the final iteration of what's approved by City
- Council. So we don't know exactly what that will be, but we already, whatever is approved, that we can
- go ahead and subdivide and do all the engineering work for that. This does include what is
- the old covalescent center that's currently being considered for a possible BPD headquarters site. Really
- the main reason for that is all of that property that
- that building is on and everything else is all just one parcel. It has to be subdivided, it has to be
- included in this contract. So that's a part of this. The contract is set at a not to exceed amount of
- $424,200 and we expect to move forward full steam ahead with design, hoping to even get underway with
- construction this year. So happy to answer any questions on this one.
- I'll just real quick comment. Excuse me on both of these. The last contract with the amendment for the
- engineering of all the West Second Street, and then, you know, this large consulting contract for more
- design and, you know, in a lot of ways this can be considered of, you know, redeveloping a large part
- of our city.
- We were putting a lot of staff time, resources, effort into the Hopewell project and everything that
- holds for the future of the community. So this is just another step in that we've gotten the Hopewell
- East kind of started and that's taken off. We've got these road projects going now. This is another
- phase of all of that redevelopment that is all the old Bloomington Hospital site. So exciting to start
- seeing some of this come to fruition when it was all thought about back in
- 2013, 14, 15 whatnot. So just kind of add those comments. And I will add this is using TIF funding,
- which is being considered by the RDC in a week. So if they do not approve the funding for whatever reason,
- then this contract just wouldn't be, we wouldn't issue an NTP to move forward with it. So I do have
- a couple of questions. Who is the actual petitioner in front of the Planning Commission and City Council?
- Is it the city government or is there a private developer on board already
- doing that petition work? They've hired a consultant to prepare documentation and the PUD itself. I
- believe the petitioner though is the redevelopment commission. And does this contract include any of
- the preliminary design work to get to the City Council? So that's all being handled by the consultant
- that's doing the PUD.
- Great. And then so Hopewell South, we're talking about the land south of First Street. Correct.
- Thank you. How far south of First Street does this go? Is Wiley the southern boundary? That's correct.
- Yeah. There's some property west of Fairview along First Street, south side of First Street. And then
- there's a big parcel that's kind of Fairview, First, Rogers, and Wiley.
- is all part of this. And so what I heard you say earlier in the staff report is that city council is
- considering the options as far as those designs that might be available and how they're going to proceed
- with that. So we are reviewing and approving this. And then this design is going to be informed
- by what City Council approves? Is this the right order? That's correct. Yeah, engineering work would
- be required no matter what. I mean, even if we proceeded under current zoning, all of these same things
- would be required. So whatever they end up approving, that's what we'll move forward with. OK, great.
- Any other questions from the board? None, for me. Any public comments on this item?
- Seeing none, is there a motion? I move that we approve the LPA consulting contract with Crossroad Engineers
- PC for preliminary engineering at the Hopewell South project. Second. All right, I will call the roll.
- Carome? Aye. Roach? Aye. Cox-Dekard, aye. Motion passes.
- Next, we have extension on lane and sidewalk closures for Duke Energy on West 11th Street. Hello,
- Zach Bell, Engineering. One moment. Duke Energy is requesting an extension of the duration of sidewalk
- and lane closures located at West 11th Street. These closures were previously approved at the
- November 18, 2025 BBW meeting. A late start in Clement weather and other complications have slowed work
- substantially. The new target finish date is March 31, 2026. An extension of 30 working days or six
- weeks is requested. Thank you. Questions from the board on this item?
- Just to be clear, the original target finish date was six weeks prior to March 31st? I believe that's
- accurate. Yeah. OK, thank you. Zach, they've been in good touch with you. They've been keeping up. Yeah,
- yeah. I've checked on them bi-weekly, and they've just run into lots of problems. They're having to
- move the truck when buses comes through. So they're having some access issues along with weather. This
- is a tight location up in here.
- Madam, have we heard any new reports or any considerations from city residents about this? I have not
- seen any in association with this permit. They haven't advanced very far. So they're still in the section
- of West 11th that doesn't have sidewalk there on the side that they're working. So aside from the lane
- closure, I don't foresee that there would be any issues at this point. OK, great. Thank you.
- Any other questions from the board on this item? Any public comments on this item? Seeing none, is there
- a motion? Sorry, I move that we approve the extension on lane and sidewalk closures for Duke Energy
- on West 11th Street. Second. All right, I will call the roll. Corrine? Aye. Roach?
- Aye. Cox-Dekard, aye. Motion passes. Next, we have sidewalk and lane closures at West 1st Street for
- Clark Landscaping. Zach Bell, engineering again. Clark Landscaping is requesting approval for sidewalk
- closures at 1004 West 1st Street. This request is for sidewalk replacements on the north and south side
- of West 1st Street. A pedestrian detour will be in place for the expected duration of one week per side.
- Andy Clark has supplied maintenance of traffic plans for all work. Questions from the board on this
- item? Just quickly, Clark Landscaping, that's the company who has applied for the permit. They're the
- ones doing the work. What's spurring this? Why are they?
- That's not a question I asked the applicant, but I do think that it was a result of a sidewalk letter.
- I think so. I believe so. And they do own property on both sides. Great. Thank you. And this is to the
- west of the Hopewell area, right? So like we're outside of Hopewell. So any
- that might be happening in that area is not necessarily going to be impacted by this project. No and
- this is one week per side. And that's a that's a heavy estimate. That's something I did because they
- said three days and I just think with the size of it I think more likely one week per side is more accurate.
- And this will all occur before anything else happens on the other side with any of the work with Hopewell
- either south or second street.
- Yeah, if there's any problems with that, we can coordinate if there is anything coming up. Totally entranced
- by the street configuration here and the names, but I'm not going to fixate on it. I'm going to let
- it go. I'm going to just know it's right. I saw it also. I don't know if it's like, like in some spots
- it almost looks like unimproved
- alley maybe that's associated with the streets. But I'm just I'm not going to dwell. It's good. It's
- a good spot. OK. Any other questions from the board before I go down into my rabbit hole? None.
- All right. Any public comments on this item? None on Zoom. All right. Is there a motion? I move that
- we approve the sidewalk and lane closures at West First Street for Clark Landscaping. Second?
- All right, I will call the roll. Caron? Aye. Roach? Aye. Cox-Dekard, aye. Motion passes. Next, we have
- closures and lane shifts at 115 East Kirkwood for Odyssey Construction with a noise permit. Kyle Ball,
- engineering. And I'll apologize. This one is wordy. But there's a lot going on here.
- So I'll just read it verbatim, and we'll get into questions. So Odyssey Construction is requesting a
- pedestrian diversion, intermittent closures, traffic lane shifts, intermittent lane closures,
- alley closures, metered parking reservations, all in association with the project at 115 East Kirkwood
- Avenue. The request impacts the northern sidewalk on East Kirkwood, the north-south and east-west alleys
- surrounding 115 East Kirkwood, the east-west travel lanes on East Kirkwood,
- and the metered parking spaces along the north side of East Kirkwood. These proposed closures would
- be used to accommodate utility relocations and the construction of condominiums with ground floor retail
- at 115 East Kirkwood. The temporary traffic control measures would be in place from January 28th through
- July 28th, 2027 for approximately 18 months.
- The requested closures mentioned here, these would be very temporary. These would be in the case of
- some deliveries that are planning that will be scheduled. Once on Kirkwood for concrete cores, estimated
- 12 to 18 of memory serves occurrences, which we would stipulate that would not occur during daytime
- hours. So it would be early warning operations, hence the attached noise permit.
- to accommodate those during those non-peak hours. Same goes for the sidewalk closure. Obviously, we
- wouldn't want pedestrians interacting on that north side whenever that type of work is occurring. We've
- worked with Odyssey Construction on material delivery, staging. They have reached out to the neighbors,
- so they have a plan in place.
- and have held meetings with the neighbors there to coordinate on things like trash pickup, deliveries,
- all the nuts and bolts of the area. I think that covers everything. I'm happy to take any questions
- if there are any. Thank you. Questions from the board on this item? Just some clarifying questions.
- So the lane closures and the
- and the work makes total sense. I'm looking at the next resolution, authorization of scheduling noise
- permits. How are these interrelated and how is that one different? I'm probably jumping ahead, but.
- No, no, you're fine. This one went back and forth with Miranda on quite a bit to figure out how to do
- this properly. So this is the associated noise permit that would be future schedule. So we don't have
- a definitive timeline or exact dates of when these
- instances would occur where these closures be a place where we'd have some extra construction traffic
- on Kirkwood and then that would be in the early morning hours. Would those specific dates once they're
- determined, would those be approved by staff or come back to the board? They would be director level
- from my understanding.
- Yeah, so what we've worked out here is we know that the concrete pours for the footers and such are
- going to be extensive and that, you know, those are going to be pumper trucks, everything else. And
- trying to get them started before the city ordinance allows at 6 a.m. If we can start them a couple
- hours earlier, 3, 4 a.m. allows us to get that traffic back open on Kirkwood and more during the commercial
- parts of the day. I'll just jump in with a couple
- other comments generally about this project. For those at home that may be watching on cats or whatnot,
- 115 East Kirkwood is the empty parking lot adjacent to CVS.
- that's been undeveloped for some time now. It's just served as a surface parking lot. There have been
- several iterations of that project over time, of a project at that site over time. This is the one that's
- gotten to the point where they're ready to move forward with construction, with right away permits.
- This site is super challenging. So it's basically got zero lot lines. It's gonna be a very tight construction
- site, staging, all the different thing, all the different materials and such to build
- it. It's not a corner lot either, you know, if this is a corner lot you then have more access from two
- sides. So we've been really trying to work with the developers and the team that's working
- on the construction for this to try to minimize the impacts while recognizing there are going to be
- significant impacts to that block throughout the construction period, hopefully 18 months or so.
- Additionally, there's a lot of utility relocation work and such that is associated with it. So,
- you know, trying to get all of this coordinated and to know when exactly things are going to occur is
- just still somewhat up in the air, but obviously working closely with everyone. When it comes to those
- noise, with respect to the noise permits and such, instead of
- Trying to come back with a package of noise permits. This allows the board to grant Andrew Seaborg the
- engineering director and myself as public works director to work directly with the teams to know when
- it's going to occur get notifications out.
- It's possible we would come back for additional noise permit for nighttime construction, depending on
- how the project's going. You know, it's right down in the commercial area. So, you know, we want to
- expedite, help expedite construction the best we can while recognizing it's got a lot of site limitations.
- I do see we've got Adam Kunkel on Adams with Odyssey and the development. And then.
- Ben's here to help answer any questions, but something we've been trying to coordinate for quite some
- time and it's taken a lot of effort. Appreciate Ben and Adam and everybody being good partners and trying
- to make this all work. The other thing I'll say as a further comment,
- The economic and sustainable development staff today sent off a memo to the City Council and others
- outlining what our plans for the outdoor dining season will be. We are not planning to close Kirkwood
- in the ways that we have in the past couple years. We're recommending a parklet only program, enhancing
- that program, allow folks to use the parking spaces while we
- further study Kirkwood and actually closing it for dining or other things. So there's a big memo that's
- gone out on that, but so we were already not really planning to close that block for the outdoor dining.
- So that's also had some shifting factors that we've been kind of working through here. So yeah, that's
- all I've got to add. Kyle, did I miss anything? No, that's plenty, I think, from both of us.
- Adam, thanks for preempting one of my questions about the parklets. My other question is about
- any large-scale festival that uses the footprint of Kirkwood from Walnut to Indiana. How will these
- closures impact any of those, particularly this, I think, upcoming summer of 2026? Yep, it will have
- impacts, but we'll try to mitigate and try to work around the ones that, so,
- I won't talk about it. So Lotus tends to use that first block for a lot of their ticketing, merchandising
- type stuff. Taste was down there with the same. We're going to work with developers, work with the property
- owners and when there are impacts and this is kind of what we said in our special event application
- here in the other
- couple of weeks ago is, you know, when there are major construction projects, developments, or other
- impacts to our approved festival footprints, we're going to work with the festival organizers and the
- developers to, you know, A, mitigate the impacts, but then when it's not possible, we'll have to think
- about alternative locations for what was happening in this area for those festivals. That's helpful.
- Thank you. So with this request, I don't see a specific
- right of way closure, although I do read in the staff report that there is temporary traffic control
- measures, which to me says there are going to be impacts to the rights of way. When I think about this
- date range, January 28th through July 28th, is any portion of the right of way around the project going
- to essentially be closed for either that
- duration or a shorter but substantial duration during that time, or are these just temporary closures
- for like moving and truly day-to-day kinds of impacts? That's a great call out. So we would have the
- pedestrian diversion, so that's where the temporary traffic control elements come in, you know, the
- vast majority of this project timeline. So we'd consider any of the
- associated items, temporary traffic control devices, and part of the plan. The north-south alleyway
- closure, and then correct me if I'm wrong here, the north-south alleyway closure would be the footer
- that we're going to be cutting into first. Is that correct? Really, Kirkwood would be the first one,
- and then we will be able to go up north-south. Actually, can you come up to the table and just state
- your name for the record? Sorry, yeah. All good. Yep, Ben Comple with Genesis Build.
- But we think Kirkwood would be the first footing that we would put in, start taking out the sidewalk,
- the brick pavers, the tree, a couple of street trees, the lights, and work that whole area, and then
- work up the north-south alley. But we can't go too far because we're waiting on Duke to remove some
- poles. And once that happens, we can go a little further and make our way over the back. So the idea
- is to work our way from the front to the back, digging a hole. It's a big hole.
- like the sidewalk on Kirkwood and the restrictions on that, that'll be in place for the duration of
- the project or what will be closed, just for the board, like outlining what will be closed when and
- for how long. Right, my understanding is that would be utilized for the duration as a lay down area.
- Yes, that's correct. So the pedestrian diversion will be in place, I mean, when the project puts it
- in place, but basically we can assume
- it would be in place for the duration of this time span once it has been placed through July 28th. And
- then the alleyway, so we're really only talking about, I looked at the map, we're really only talking
- about two, there's two alleyways.
- And that is along what I am perceiving as the back of the project. So there's the one on the north side
- of the project footprint, and there's the one on the west side of the project footprint. And those alleyways,
- can we assume those are closed for the duration of the project? No, for pedestrians. They saw egress
- out of the buildings. They saw deliveries. They saw trash. They got the wheel up and down to get to
- the major vehicle. No, it's closed. OK. So if you think about the building that had
- I think of it as the old Sullivan's building. I think it's still called that, but we're big to Bloomington.
- They've got some apartments above some of those apartments. Their access is off the alleyway there.
- Um, think about, you know, the backside of Malibu grill and all those, they're going to be taking deliveries.
- Um, and so emergency egress, emergency egress, all those things. So that's what, uh, we'll be taken
- into account for all those alleys and try and
- The delivery truck's not going to get the produce delivery from the alley. They're going to come off
- of Kirkwood and have to wheel. But that's where we're going to rely on Ben and his team and the property
- owners and everybody to be regularly communicating with those neighbors and being good neighbors in
- what's going to be a challenging footprint of a project. And were the neighbors notified about this
- meeting? Yes.
- Question about the street parking. The report mentions some closure of metered parking on the north
- side. Is that just the two spaces in front of CVS, what we're talking about? Or are we talking about
- some more further to the west, like next to... No, yeah, just what's kept in front of the property.
- Yeah. There's, I think, two spaces too in front of the street trees there. I got the lot in front of the lot.
- I recognize that the map isn't scaled necessarily, but the pedestrian diversion, will that essentially
- be to the south of the sidewalk and street tree area into the street? Yeah, so that will essentially condense
- the traffic going east and west on Kirkwood, as well as potentially there's that parklet for, uh, for,
- uh, uptown on the other side there. Yeah, that's all being taken to no account. So when they're there,
- we're still in the configuration where there will be some lane shifts using the park. So there'll be
- some lane shifts to the south using some of the parking in front of like the buzz Kirk and, um,
- Uh, I can't think of the name Chubbies taco place and the alumni hall. Like some of that will be diverted.
- Traffic will be diverted there during certain phases of the project. Um, but, um, and there will be
- then the pedestrian walk around too at that same time. Right. And again, the pedestrian walk around
- will be in place for the entire 18 months of the project. Correct. Correct.
- So traffic will be impacted at some level for the entire 18 months? Yes. Yes. OK. Thank you. I think
- I already know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is there any possible way
- those two street trees can be preserved in place? No, that's just the reconfiguration that's happening
- with taking out the drive and everything. Yeah. OK.
- It's tight. And you'll have a landscape plan that you have to put back in per VDO. Yeah. Yeah, there's
- a new landscape.
- As this project continues, we'll obviously keep the board up to speed on any developments with it, anything
- that comes up, whether it's staff reports or modifications to any of the right-of-way permits. Obviously
- gonna be working very closely with Ben and their teams on kind of the week-to-week, day-to-day stuff
- that's gonna come up with a big project like this, but anything else we're forgetting. I hope not. And
- just for some context related to the noise permits,
- Are you anticipating these are sort of daily noise permits or I know you said there could be a situation
- where construction necessitates overnight construction for a
- longer period of time. Is that then coming back to the board? Anything else? This is just specifically
- for those concrete pours, nothing else. If they did want to come back and say, hey, we've gotten behind
- schedule because of XYZ and we want to start working overnights for two weeks in this period, we would
- be coming back for other noise permits. But we're hoping that's not necessary. This is just for these
- concrete pours. Yeah, for a very short duration noise permit. Any other questions from the board?
- Elizabeth, anything else? No. None for me, thank you. All right, public comments on this item. And if
- you're on Zoom, you can use the raised hand function or the chat function if you've joined us there.
- Nope, just got Adam, the other personal development team. Okay, all right, seeing none, is there a motion
- on this item?
- I move that we approve the closures and land shifts at 115 East Kirkwood for Odyssey Construction with
- a noise permit. Second. All right, I'll call the roll. Caron? Aye. Roach? Aye. Cox-Dekard, aye. Motion passes.
- Next we have resolution 2026-009, authorization of scheduling for the noise permit issued at 115 East
- Kirkwood. So this is a separate one? We could have probably done one motion there. I was trying to resolve
- something on Zoom. So yeah, resolution 2026-09 authorizes myself or Andrew Seaborg, engineering director,
- to execute those noise permits for those concrete pours we were just talking about.
- All right, any questions from the board, additional questions from the board on that item? Any public
- comments on this item? I don't see any. Seeing none, is there a motion? If I could just ask one question
- pertaining to the motion, I assume there's no difference in the numbering between resolution 2026-009
- as written on the agenda and 2026-09.
- as written on the resolution. There was just an X. It made it sound cooler to have the double zero.
- It's just, it's 09. Yeah, I think that's a typo. It should just be 2026-09. Yeah, because we approved
- 08 earlier. 08 for the last mobile vendor. Sorry. OK. Thank you for confirming that. And with that,
- I move that we approve the resolution 2026-09, authorization and scheduling for the noise permit issued
- at 115 East Kirkwood.
- Second. All right. I will call the roll. Corrine? Aye. Roach? Aye. Cox-Dekard? Aye. Motion passes.
- Next up, we have staff reports and other business. All right. Adam Wason, Public Works Director. I'll
- do this in three parts. First, just a quick update about the South College road closure for the Convention
- Center, Sky Bridge construction that
- has about a two day delay on it from the last couple of days. It was supposed to go into effect first
- day overnight, Sunday into Monday. Um, for anybody that looked outside during that point in time, there
- was about a foot of snow coming down or already on the ground. And so, uh, what we worked with wet all
- over the weekend to try to anticipate, uh, late last weekend through the weekend to anticipate, um,
- they're going to go live with the closure starting. They'll be implementing that closure later this
- evening and then, um, hope,
- hoping they can still compact it all into the original time frame, but we will be working closely with
- them on any of that. So that's the first update. The South College road closure for the Convention Center
- will begin tomorrow and go for at least 12 days, maybe 14 depending. Second up, the
- James, you mentioned in your comments at the beginning of the meeting about the little party that happened
- on Kirkwood on the wee hours of Tuesday morning after the national championship victory on Monday evening.
- Just want to give a big shout out to our friends in public safety, both Blovington Police Department
- and the Fire Department. Public Works was coordinating with them very closely leading up to that game.
- And in the weeks before,
- for all the other games on the way to the championship. And so a big shout out to our city crews and
- our partners with public safety. But a bigger shout out to the fans and those folks that went down to
- Kirkwood. And we knew they were going to have a good time. We knew they would try to climb up every
- pole that they could climb up. We knew that there would be something lit on fire. We just knew it. And
- while all of those things occurred, people climbed up on buildings.
- to get the reports the next day that there was no serious injury, no major vandalism as a credit to
- all of those revelers that came down to celebrate on Kirkwood. And so big thank you. We lost a street
- tree or two. We had to put out a couch fire. We had lots of individuals climbing on our snow plows that
- were blocking the streets from a public safety perspective. But in the end, windows weren't broken,
- looting didn't occur.
- They really celebrated, for the most part, safely and without incident. So big kudos all around there.
- And yeah, our football team is national champions. So that's pretty wild. Undefeated. Undefeated national
- champions. Don't forget. And to think that we would ever be saying that about our lovely football program,
- I as an alum did not. But happy for them. And yeah, big congrats.
- And then the third topic just want to bring up is all the snow control efforts so starting, we started
- prepping late last week with all of our trucks and getting pre treatment down and getting fleet services lined up.
- I don't know if it's exactly historic snowfall, but, um, for a 24 hour period to get over a foot of
- snow, um, just big shout out to our crews and, uh, at street, at fleet, at public safety, all those,
- uh, folks that were out working through these, this weather event. Um, it was a lot of snow. We're still
- doing a lot of digging out. Um,
- But when I came into town yesterday, when I came into the city limits yesterday and saw the condition
- of the roads after what I knew we'd been working on all night, all day and night Sunday, I was just
- completely impressed. We're having a lot of challenges with blocked sidewalks, with big giant piles
- of snow everywhere. We're starting to dig out the downtown, trying to reopen parking and things. But
- this is gonna be a challenge for probably weeks to come.
- What we're seeing in the forecast show that we're not gonna get above freezing anytime soon. There's
- a little bit of melting occurring when you get salt on some of the snow and the sunshine and such, but
- we don't expect that this is gonna melt away very quickly. So, just really appealing to property owners
- to make sure they're doing everything they can to clear sidewalks. If you're a corner lot, clearing
- all the way to the ramps is hugely important and appreciated. We're focusing our efforts
- with our Brighton Bloomington crews and our downtown staff to try to be working on the ramps and the
- crosswalks throughout the downtown over the next several days. But pedestrian mobility is going to be
- a challenge for some time and we're going to do everything we can. I'll make special note that for our
- 2026 budgets, we have some pilot type funding or trial funding.
- I don't categorize it, but we are running a pilot program in 2026 here with some funding that we requested
- to try to work on snow removal from high pedestrian, high priority pedestrian network areas that are
- monolithic sidewalks. So specifically we're working on South Walnut street with a contractor right now.
- So if you think of the east side of South Walnut all the way from Winslow to
- first or second street. Those are monolithic sidewalks, meaning there's no tree plot between the roadway
- and the sidewalk. So when that plow pushes the snow off the road, it's going onto the sidewalk. It's
- got nowhere else to go. So we were doing a contracted project to try to work on some of that snow removal
- and to try to open that up, recognizing that when we envisioned this as a pilot project, we didn't think
- the snowfall that was going to be the pilot would be a foot of snow.
- Um, when I looked at the corridor this morning and drove and was trying to envision what it would look
- like, we're going to have the contractors literally going to have to haul out most of that snow. Every
- private lot that cleared snow has pushed and blocked the ramps and the sidewalks on both sides of their,
- um, uh, their driveways and such. And it's a big challenge, but it's something we're looking at and
- you know, something we heard from the council that we wanted to try to work on. Um,
- We'll see how this goes. Other areas that we're prioritizing are out near College Mall where we know
- we have a lot of pedestrian traffic on some monolithic sidewalks out there. And then we're continuing
- to work on the overpasses on the state roads that go over I-69. So State Road 45 slash Second Street
- that goes over I-69, State Road 43, 48 that goes over at Third Street. We're also
- having contractors work on getting those pedestrian side paths cleared from east to west so folks can
- get to those major employment centers. But again, not going to be easy. It's going to be very challenging for
- if not the next several weeks, trying to get these pedestrian ways opened up the best we can in partnership
- with all the private property owners. So appreciate everyone's patience. Again, if you can clear all
- the way to those ADA ramps, that's hugely important.
- I guess I should have said I had four buckets. I started out with three buckets, fourth bucket. Sanitation
- services will resume tomorrow. So we had two days worth of delay, one just straight snow and then the
- second we were worried about some temperatures. We are gonna have the crews in tomorrow. If temperatures
- do get in that negative 10 windshield range, we will be pulling them off route and then hopefully get
- them back out. The goal is to get everyone's service this week. But if you're a sanitation customer,
- Please do everything you can to get your cart as accessible as possible. If it's in the middle of a
- snow drift and they cannot pick it up out of the snow drift, they're not going to be able to service
- it. Um, so we recognize that this is going to be challenging too, but, um, we're going to do our best
- to try to get back on schedule, get this week wrapped up and then start again next Monday with Monday
- routes, uh, hopefully on Monday. But, um, big shout out to the work that the sanitation crews are going
- to be doing. That's going to be some extremely difficult work trying to get a sanitation customer service
- this week.
- And cold work. Cold, hard, and especially cold. Yeah, it's going to be cold, hard work with difficult
- circumstances of trying to get to those cards. So a big shout out to the sanitation team. I'm sure I
- could tell you more, but that's it for now. Thank you. Next up, we have approval of claims. Any questions
- from the board on claims? No.
- any public comments on claims? Is there a motion on the claims? I move that we approve claims tonight
- in the amount of nine million one hundred thirty three thousand five hundred fifty four dollars and
- fourteen cents. Second. All right I will call the roll. Caron? Aye. Roach? Aye.
- Cox Deckard, aye. Motion passes. And seeing as there's nothing else on our agenda, I will call for adjournment.