Council discusses fair, bridge and other concerns

The Fredericktown City Council discussed future events and projects at a recent meeting.

In work session business, Juli Kline from the Madison County Fair Board gave an update on the upcoming fair Oct. 5-6 and thanked the board for its continuous support of the event.

“With the state of the remediation project we are going to switch things around a little bit,” Kline said. “We’ve worked with James (Settle) to get a good situation, so that we are not damaging any of the newly-seeded area.”

Despite the added challenge in working around the state of the park Kline seemed optimistic about trying something new.

“We are not going to have a carnival this year, but we are going to go on the old-time, old-fashioned fair bandwagon and try to get more demonstrations and games for the kids,” Kline said. “We’ve got some good things planned. We are still planning on having the livestock stand. We are just going to move things around a bit and have a good fair this year.”

The board approved the request from the County Fair Board to close streets and use the park Oct. 5-6.

It was a night of requests as several other events approached the aldermen as well. 

A liquor license for St. Michael Church’s Octoberfest to be held Oct. 7 was approved. Annual street closures for the citywide yard sale and Cub-Arama tractor show in JC Park were approved. The JROTC Boosters received approval to use the SRT Range on Oct. 6 for their third annual Mud Run.

City Attorney Mary Boner then gave an overview of the next steps for the construction of the police/fire station. Boner said the city has been hearing a lot of questions, and she thought it would be beneficial to have a discussion.

“The budgeting would be the first step, and then once we know how much money we think we are going to have for the project, the statute requires we send out for at least three architects,” Boner said. 

Boner said once options are presented the board would then select a design. Bids would be requested and then a contract would be awarded and construction would begin. She then said this is just skimming the surface of the process but gives an idea of what to expect.

Alderman Paul Brown said he has had discussions with Police Chief Eric Hovis and Fire Chief John Clark and believed the idea is to meet with Gregg Shinn in January. He said the primary goal was a school resource officer and the new building before any other equipment and purchases.

Jennifer Hale approached the alderman during the regular session to give a report on grants for the sports complex.

“I had been approached to write a few grants for the new sports complex in order to help offset some of the costs,” Hale said. “I’ve been focusing on lighting mainly, because I know that is probably the biggest cost we need to offset.”

Hale said she is currently working on an MLB Baseball Tomorrow Fund grant which is due Oct. 1 and requested certain detailed information about the project in order to finish her applications.

According to Hale, she has received a quote for lighting and the cost for all three fields could be from $570,000 to $625,000. She said she has a book full of grant opportunities for additional items as well and will come again when she can be on the agenda.

Cheryl Brulotte visited the meeting for a second time requesting an update on the bridge on City Lake Road over Village Creek.

City Engineer Tim Baer did not have great news on the topic as he answered Brulotte’s inquiry.

“We did make it out there last week one day and got the water pumped down,” Baer said. “We pumped it down a couple feet, we didn’t get it down as far as we had hoped to, but we were able to get it down where we could get our boat oar down under there and it does go back there a little ways.”

Baer said this shows the erosion he feared and now the city is left with the discussion of whether or not to fix it or let it continue.

“What we have done is gone back and looked at the options we’ve got here,” Baer said. “Bascially what we’ve got is option ‘A’ is to fix the deck and don’t fix the abutments at all. We could still go with that option and just take our chances and hope nothing happens in the near future.”

Baer said other options include repairing the abutments, asking MoDOT to allow the bridge to be one lane or completely replacing the bridge.

“If we got a new bridge we are probably looking at six months,” Baer said. “You could pump the water down and put some forms up down there and run some concrete underneath there but the problem you have is the opening under there where the water passes through is too small.” 

Baer said the cost to repair the abutments would be about $80,000 or $90,000 and a new bridge would cost about $300,000 and would last another 50 years. 

The next meeting of the Fredericktown City Council will be Sept. 10 at city hall.

Pictured is the state of Wanda Priest Park in Fredericktown as remediation of the land continues.

Pictured are the plans for the proposed Fredericktown municipal court and public safety complex.

Victoria Kemper is a reporter for the Daily Journal. She can be reached at 573-783-3366 or at vkemper@democratnewsonline.com