The City of Whitehall will soon have to undertake a new repair project on Zellar Road, city manager Scott Huebler said at the Oct. 8 regular council meeting, due to pipe damage from recent heavy rainfall.
The rain, Huebler said, caused pipes under the road to separate in four different locations, which sucked soil down and dropped concrete. The base of the road remains solid, but repairs need to be done.
Huebler said the city’s preferred option, due to its significantly lower cost, is to use backfilled asphalt to repair Zellar. He said the city has “put a fire under” its civil engineering company, Prein and Newhof, to get information together and solicit bids from companies for the project, which he estimated will cost about $110,000.
Another key reason for the asphalt being a preferred option, rather than a concrete-based plan, is that using asphalt would enable the project to be completed in November, whereas using concrete could take much longer. Huebler said the engineers and contractors he’s been talking to are “extremely confident” asphalt would adequately repair the road. The city will solicit bids and present them to the council for consideration at the next meeting Oct. 22.
The city’s other major financial discussion revolved around the purchase of trucks from Lakeshore Leaf, which was unanimously approved. The company signed a five-year contract with the city to handle leaf pickup last year, but recently informed the city it would not be able to honor the remaining four years. Instead, the company offered to sell its five-truck fleet to the cities of Whitehall and North Muskegon, with which it also had a leaf pickup contract, for a total of $225,000. The cities will each purchase two trucks and split the cost of the fifth to use as a backup for either one if needed.
Huebler said the city’s Department of Public Works employees will handle the leaf pickup this fall without another company able to pick up the workload on such short notice (leaf pickup lasts from Oct. 28 through Nov. 23). He conceded the department will be stretched thin as a result, but leaf pickup will be made a priority and other items will draw attention as needed. In the future, the city could return to contracting out the leaf pickup services.
The council also approved a lot split of the land Eastbrook Homes recently donated to the city, which it said will facilitate public access to White Lake. The council lent its moral support to an Eagle Scout project by Margaret Derby, who said she plans to build a staircase from the library parking lot to the bike path to replace a man-made shortcut between the two that she said is currently covered in roots, branches and leaves. Councilman Jeff Holmstrom, who said he is a former scout himself, made the motion to support the project and all were in favor.
