City Receives Funding for 7th Street Project

WAITSBURG - The city of Waitsburg received two grants totaling about $700,000 to update Seventh Street between Main and Arnold Streets. One of the grants is $615,000 and is supplied by the Department of Transportation and the remainder of the $700,000 is funded by the state Transpor- tation Improvement Board.

City Administrator Randy Hinchcliffe said the bid for a contractor will be awarded at the March City Council meeting and the project will begin on May 1.

For the first week of May, the contractor will remove trees and prepare for the utility companies to move pow- er poles for the final three weeks of May. The contrac- tor will begin construction on June 1 and the construction is expected to take about two months, currently scheduled for June and July.

Hinchcliffe said the proj- ect is pretty straightforward, aided by the fact that the water and sewer lines are al- ready done and will not need to be moved.

There will be some traffic disruptions but there are many viable detours, Hinch- cliffe said.

When the project is fin- ished, it will be something like the current Eighth Street - a wider street with a sidewalk and easier turns.

Because the project is funded by grants, no local taxpayer dollars go toward the construction.