The Wayland City Council Monday night made a couple of decisions about city streets.
One was a decision to pay about $22,000 for an infrared asphalt heater to help handle street pothole problems at the start of the season. City Manager Erik Wilson noted the perks conditions even in the downtown areas of Main and Superior streets.
So city employees with the Department of Public Works will be using the heated materials in hopes of better outcomes than the usual mill and fill proces.
Another decision was approval of a budget amendment payment of a little more than $1.7 million for repaving Locust and Lorene streets, which will be the city’s project this year. Oetman Construction of Moline has been hired to do the work.
In other business Monday night, the City Council:
- Agreed to buy new police server for about $20,000 after hearing from Police Chief Scott Mattice, who reported the current device is on its last legs and soon could become totally dysfunctional.
- Listened to a presentation from a representative from the Allegan County Commission on Aging urging support for continuing the offer of hot meals for the Meals on Wheels program rather than just the frozen meals. The County Board of Commissioners recently voted for the frozen meals in order to save money and time, but the rep. insisted, “We don’t believe the issues was fairly assessed. The COA maintains the hot meals process allows drivers to do welfare checks on clients as well.
• Noted the council will have its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, April 6, despite the fact it will come on the heels of spring break, which starts Monday, March 30.
Interesting that the city is now having a discussion about an infrared asphalt heater which is probably not a bad investment, but in my opinion and according to the city engineer, the biggest problem with roads deteriorating is keeping the water off them. I would agree that one of the biggest problems is that most of the sewer drains are always clogged up with debris so water has to stay on the roads longer than necessary. So why doesn’t the City Council and city manager require the DPW spend more time keeping these clean? I believe some areas of Wayland are beyond patching and need to be replaced. That comes from aging infrastructure and lack of maintenance.