Bids, VPR liens, and grant opportunities also acted upon by council members Monday night
Members of the Sutton City Council put their stamp of approval on moving forward with the second phase of Sutton’s downtown revitalization plan (DTR) during its February meeting Monday, Feb. 10 in the council chambers.
The plan, according to Scott Hrabik of JEO Consulting of Lincoln, comes with an opinion of probable cost right at $403,000 to make improvements to the one block of sidewalks along the northern half of Sutton’s downtown business district between Elm and Maple Streets, much like the DTR project that occurred a few years ago along the southern-most half of Sutton’s downtown business district.
The approval to move forward begins with the announcement of the bidding process, which appears in the next three weeks of the Clay County News’ Public Notice pages, starting this week.
BIDS AWARDED
Council members addressed three bidding options that were in front of the board Monday night, beginning with bids to lease the city’s compost dump ground.
Two bids were received for the ground, one from Keenan Friesen and Caleb Fintel, and the other from David Drudik.
City leaders awarded Drudik’s bid of $5,200 per year, over the course of the next three years, or a total of $15,600, to use the ground. Friesen and Fintel bid the lease of the ground at $4,750 per year or a total of $14,250.
No bids were obtained by city leaders for the mowing of Sutton’s City Cemetery, so council members voted to extend the bidding process 30 more days in an effort to try and find an interested party to provide the mowing of the cemetery on the north end of the city.
Four street improvement projects were awarded to a pair of Sutton-based businessed Monday night, as both Van Kirk Bros. Contracting and A+ Contracting were awarded two of the four projects each.
Van Kirk Bros. Contracting was awarded projects at the intersection of Forrest and Maltby Avenue, and along a portion of West Cedar Street, while A+ Contracting was awarded bids for projects along Ada Street, and East Hickory Street.
The Forrest and Maltby intersection project for Van Kirk Bros. Contracting was bid at $80,200, while the West Cedar Street project was bid at $74,700.
The two A+ Contracting bids that were awarded to the Sutton firm would see the Ada Street parking project bid at $23,685.90, while the East Hickory Street project was bid at $119,151.
Bidding will also begin for the mowing of at least 15 city-owned properties throughout the city. Bids will be accepted by the City of Sutton until 2 p.m., Wednesday, March 5.
VPR PROPERTIES
City leaders approved the addition of added liens of four vacant properties by Five Rule, LLC, of Kearney to move forward.
Properties located at 105 N. Way, 305 S. Saunders, and 203 S. Maltby will have an additional $1,000 worth of liens added to these properties, bringing all three properties to a total of $1,500 worth of liens applied against each property.
Each of these properties was registered on the VPR listing in April of 2023.
Property that is located at 506 E. Elm, which has been on the VPR listing since May 26, 2021, will have an additional $2,500 lien against it with the approval by the council, bringing the lien total against this property set at $11,500.
GRANT OPPORTUNITY BY COMMUNITY HOME City leaders approved a request made by the Sutton Community Home to move forward with a possible grant opportunity to help the Sutton home move closer to breaking ground on its a renovation and construction project that SCH has been working on for several years.
The approval by council members allows the city to work with the South Central Nebraska Development District (SCEDD) to pursue a competitive Rural Economic Development Grant (REDG) for a fee of $2,000, to attempt to obtain the grant in the amount of $300,000 to the city for the use of economic growth throughout the City of Sutton, with the initial loan going to the Sutton Community Home for its renovation and construction project.
Once the funding is paid back by SCH, the REDG funds would then be able to be loaned out to other economic development projects within the city’s jurisdiction.
