City Council grants extension on South Washington project
Work on South Washington Street has been completed, but some city officials are questioning whether construction crews did the work quickly enough.
At Tuesday evening's Hillsboro City Council meeting, the council was presented with a request by APAC Construction to extend their South Washington work contract by 12 days.
APAC finished work on the street on Friday, Sept. 13. Now, Hillsboro city crews will apply street sealant.
The work on the street was originally scheduled to be completed by late August.
APAC's request said that unexpected work done by Greeley Gas in the middle of the project and bad weather contributed to delays in construction.
But some council members wondered if 12 days was too much.
At the previous council meeting, city engineer Bob Previtera had told the council that only four extra days would be necessary, said councilmember Matt Hiebert.
Twelve extra days seems excessive, said council president Len Coryea.
City Administrator Steve Garrett said that the difference in days wasn't that important, considering that the city would like to do business with APAC again.
The end result of the construction work is a quality street, Garrett said.
He said that during at least three construction days, no work at all was done while APAC and Greeley Gas "butted heads" over the gas line work.
Coryea and Hiebert also agreed that the finished product is good, but they don't want the trend of late work to continue, they said.
Mayor Delores Dalke said that the construction company wasn't purposely stretching out the work days to get more money — it's not cheap for them to bring work crews up to Hillsboro every day, she said.
"I can't believe that they're doing this on purpose to make money," Dalke said.
After the discussion, the Council voted 3-1 to approve the extension. Coryea was the member voting against.
Also at Tuesday's meeting, the Council voted to change the health insurance plan for city employees.
Because of premium increases, the city can no longer use last year's plan, Dalke said.
Currently, health insurance for the employee alone costs $167.08 a month, which the city pays completely.
For an employee and spouse, that cost rises to $358.65 per month. The city pays $262.87, and the employee pays $95.78.
The costs rise as more coverage is added.
The city had already anticipated rising costs in insurance, and it budgeted for a possible 25 percent increase in premiums, Dalke said.
Tuesday evening, the Council approved a new insurance plan that costs $201.65 per month for single coverage. The city will pay that full amount.
This option reflects a 14 percent increase in premiums. It also increases the office visit copay to $20 per visit.
City department heads hadn't been informed of the exact changes in their insurance, but they knew that changes were coming soon, Garrett said.
