PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council has hired a local contractor to repair three damaged streets and to chip seal two others later this year.
Council members voted 7-0 March 17 to award a $359,550 contract to Lakeside Industries Inc. of Port Angeles.
The engineer’s estimate was $290,500. Lakeside was the only company to bid on the two-part paving project.
The contract was approved shortly after the council had declared an emergency for the coronavirus pandemic.
“We always want to be responsible with taxpayer money in terms of our cost, and given where our economy is right now, I’m pleased that this is going to a local contractor to ensure that they can plan ahead for work for their employees locally,” Mayor Kate Dexter said.
Port Angeles Public Works and Utilities Director Thomas Hunter said the “twofold” project includes routine chip sealing on Peabody Street from Eighth Street to Ahlvers Road and on Park Avenue from Peabody to Race streets.
It also involves more “surgical” paving where emergency sewer and water main repairs were made over the winter on Lincoln Street, Fourth Street and Marine Drive, Hunter said.
“We wait until we have enough projects that it seems economical to lump those in with an annual paving project,” Hunter told the council last week.
“It’s an effective way of us stretching our dollars.
“Unfortunately, asphalt’s really expensive right now,” Hunter added, “and the projects that we’re looking at are difficult projects because they’re not typical widths.”
The city declared an emergency for a broken sewer main on Lincoln Street between Fourth and Fifth streets last December. The declaration enabled the city to hire Bruch and Bruch Construction of Port Angeles to repair the 1915 sewer at a cost of $152,000.
Cold mix asphalt also was used to patch street surfaces after water main breaks at Fourth and N streets and Marine Drive.
The city had budgeted $222,921 for the Park Avenue and Peabody Street chip seals.
Water and wastewater reserves will be used to cover the $99,761 repairs to Fourth Street and Marine Drive and the $36,868 repair on South Lincoln Street, according to a City Council memo.
“We’re actually doing more of a surgical approach because we have areas that have really bad base, and we need to fix that so that when we chip seal over it it doesn’t fail in five years,” Hunter told the council.
Council member Mike French said he had fielded complaints about the street surface at Fourth and N streets in west Port Angeles.
“I’m excited to see this being done because a lot of people in my neighborhood have been really irritated with that specific repair and how it’s aged,” French told Hunter.
“But it’s going to get fixed, so thank you.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at [email protected].
