New facing on city lots

The main topics of discussion at the Tuesday, Feb. 21 Waseca council meeting were parking lot rehabilitations and street and trail projects. A separate story on the Eighth Avenue reconstruction project is elsewhere in this week’s paper.

City Engineer Nate Willey described a “mill and overlay” of the city hall south parking lot and full and partial depth patching in the Maplewood and Public Safety building parking lots, all of which are intended  to extend the pavement life.

Also in the plans is relocating an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant parking space from the south parking lot to the accessible public entrance on State Street. “The plan is to make a spot closer to the public access entrance and ramp,” Willey elaborated. “There is already one; moving the other to  the south side parking lot would make it two. We need to do that to be ADA compliant.”

The city’s street department staff will use funds budgeted for the project to purchase rock, asphalt, and concrete to redo the west city hall parking lot behind the electric garage. “The pavement’s getting kind of rough,” Willey said. “The streets department is willing to do the work.”

The project is estimated at $152,000; the city had budgeted $185,000 in funding thanks to talks with the council in 2022 to add this to the city’s capital improvement plan. “That $152,000 will still allow money for them to purchase materials to do that work,” Willey explained. “The city staff will perform project inspection.”

Council member John Mansfield was unsure of the need for all the items listed in the parking lot projects. “We can paint some ADA stuff closer to the building,” he said, “but this seems like a lot of money just for the city to get a new parking lot.”

He added that there are streets in the city that could use the funds more than city hall. “I’m reticent on endorsing $185,000 for the city like we’re getting ourselves a brand new facelift. I’d rather see that money go to those other streets.”

Ebertowski shared similar concerns with the south parking lot. “The west parking lot and ramp area has been degrading; I like the idea of not throwing everything out the window,” he said. “But to John’s point, maybe consider the west parking lot a little bit.”

During this discussion, Willey added the project will include moving the dumpster currently located just west of the water tower. “It’s not screened,” he said. “If we’re telling other businesses to screen their dumpsters, we should screen our own.”

The dumpster will be moved to the south side of the door to successfully screen it and make garbage dumping easier for the employees.

Mansfield and Ebertowski were still unsure about moving forward with improvements on the west parking lot. “Other than a few improvements over by the garage, I don’t see anything severe,” Mansfield elaborated. “Ripping it all up and putting in a new lot doesn’t make sense to me.”

“If that’s something you feel we should hold off on, that’s your decision,” Willey said. “I recommend continuing with the mill and overlay. We’re getting to the point where lots are starting to fail.”

Mansfield motioned to table the discussion to give City Manager Carl Sonnenburg more time to research other options. “Waiting two weeks shouldn’t affect the bids too much,” Willey said.

However, Mayor Randy Zimmerman asked the last time any work was done on the parking lots. Willey assumed the early 2000s, but couldn’t give an exact year.

The council then approved moving forward with the project with Mansfield and Ebertowski opposing. Ebertowski said that while he didn’t think the project was a bad idea, he didn’t understand all of it enough to vote in favor of it. Mansfield said that while he was supportive of doing some of the work, he didn’t see the project as a whole as  being necessary.

Other Business

In other projects, Willey informed the council that the city was awarded up to $125,000 in grant funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to construct a ten-foot wide bituminous trail on the east side of North State Street between 13th and 15th Avenues. Council member Jeremy Conrath explained that it would connect the missing sidewalk by Bomgaars to the existing trail by McDonalds and the safe routes to Waseca High School.

Council members approved two items concerning the State Street/Highway 13 trail connector project. First, they approved the cooperative construction agreement with MnDOT, and then authorized Willey and the city staff to approve plans and specifications for the project and then call for bids.

The council granted the Waseca Real Estate Foundation exclusive rights to research the marketplace property between the Waseca High School and Walmart for six months before coming to the council with their findings. They tabled looking at planning commission applicants as there were more applicants than positions available. Conrath suggested that Sonnenburg look into returning the planning commission to having seven members as it once did, rather than the current five.

The meeting adjourned at 8:00 p.m.