Wilmette has geared up for a $1.28 million summer road repair season this year. Village trustees who met Jan. 26 approved a $103,500 contract to design and engineer work on stretches of five Wilmette roads, along with a resolution that will free up $923,000 of Wilmette’s motor fuel tax revenues to help pay for the projects.
Those tax revenues, which are collected by the state from gasoline sales and distributed to municipalities, are already in village coffers despite the state’s ongoing budget impasse, and can be freed up to fund resurfacing on four streets and brick restoration on a fifth, Assistant Village Manager Michael Braiman said.
“Back in October the state was withholding (those) funds, but they released all of them in December. They are current with their motor fuel tax revenues, so we have the money,” Braiman said Jan. 28.
Once Illinois Department of Transportation officials review contracts for road work to be paid for by the state tax money, Wilmette will be able to use it, he said.
According to a report by Engineering and Public Works Director Brigitte Berger, the 2016 projects, which are part of the village’s ongoing streets and alley maintenance program, include resurfacing the following streets:
* 7th Street, from Lake Avenue to Greenwood Avenue;
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* Laurel Avenue, from 4th Street to 8th Street;
* Harvard Street, from Washington Avenue to Lake;
* West Park Drive near the Wilmette-Glenview border, from Lake south to the village’s Public Works Department building gate.
Also on the agenda for this summer’s work is removal of the asphalt surface and restoration of the underlying brick roadwork on 15th Street between Walnut Avenue and Green Bay Road, the report said.
The actual reconstruction and maintenance work will cost about $1.1 million, it said. That includes $825,000 of motor fuel tax revenue, plus $360,000 in the village’s own general fund revenue. The rest of the $1.28 million comprises the $103,500 design and engineering contract to Rosemont-based Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd., or CBBEL.
The company will do the design and engineering work to ensure the projects can go out to bid in early spring. Wilmette’s engineering department currently has some staff vacancies that make outsourcing the design work necessary, the report said.
Negotiations with CBBEL, which has worked on Wilmette engineering programs for more than 15 years, reduced the company’s fee from more than 10 percent of the overall cost to 9.56 percent of the cost, according to Berger.
“Typically, engineering fees, as a percentage of construction costs, are in the range of 15 percent,” her report said.
On Jan. 26, Berger said work on each street will also include curb and sidewalk repair.
“We do a comprehensive rehabilitation of the streets, we check sidewalks to make sure they are all (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible, fix drainage problems and make sure they have no other problems,” she said.
Braiman said the design contract is being paid for out of a $230,000 motor fuel tax reserve made up of previous years’ revenues that had been planned for earlier projects but not used.
“That brings the (motor fuel tax) part of the project up to $923,500,” he said.
Bids on this year’s work are expected to go out in March, and construction should be completed in July, Berger said.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy