City discusses work on 6th Street water project, streets
The Cameron City Council approved a change order for a water project on 6th Street among other topics on Tuesday night.
The council approved a change order in the amount of about $78,000 to be taken from American Rescue Plan Act funds for the water line project on 6th Street.
The funds will be used to tie in four water lines that were discovered during the construction process. Those water lines don’t have isolation valves on them. So in order to tie them in, insertion valves will need to be installed.
The council also discussed another issue with that project. As part of the project 10 existing fire hydrants were to be replaced. Six of those have been replaced. Four of those hydrants have no way to isolate them to make a new connection. Line stops will need to be installed to isolate the old hydrant and replace it with a new hydrant. The total cost would be $86,800.
The council decided to hold the hydrants and have city staff do them on their own throughout the year.
Former City Councilwoman Virgie Hardeman was on the agenda to discuss street work.
Hardeman was on hand to discuss street projects from 2023 that have not been finished in her opinion.
“As I previously discussed I feel there is a discrepancy in how the streets are being repaired on the east side as compared to the west side,” she said. “On the west side there was approval for 12th Street, 6th Street and 8th Street to be redone in 2023. It appears to me that projects that are supposed to be done by the street department aren’t done. Right now 6th Street is completely torn up due to whatever they are doing over there with the lines and I understand that. 8th Street they came out and put a top coat of gravel on and everybody that lives on 8th Street complains about the dust. There is no top coat pavement anywhere except for a small amount on MLK. I don’t understand how you can go from year to year and keep approving streets to be done and the funds that are allocated for those streets you haven’t completed them for 2023.”
Councilmember Nathan Fuchs asked it the main issue is the dust and Hardeman said she thinks the top coat is not being put on correctly and those streets need to be looked at.
City Manager Ricky Tow said the process is that if it is a surface redo that is just an oil put down and rock put down. If it is a zipped out street, the city zips it out to a rock base and then we redo it and put down a rock layer and oil layer and a rock layer. After that is done we typically wait a year and then come back and do a top coat or fog sealer to bind it back down to keep water out.
“That is what we do everywhere,” Tow said. “ I know on 12th and 8th last year that is what we did. They were smoothed over to do some of the pot holes. Then we will do the fog sealer. A lot of the streets we didn’t get done last year due to the storm clean up cost. They were rolled over into the 2024 project.”
“I think these streets need to be reevaluated and revisited,” Hardeman said. “The funding was allocated in 2023 and they are incomplete. When will the top coats be put on and what is the process for completing streets. These streets on the west side are not being properly done. They are not complete. They have been patched and patched not completed. I would appreciate if we can revisit those streets and see that they are done.”
In other business the council also: appointed Stephen Bradley, Galdino Banda and Kyle Nuttall to the Planning and Zoning Commission; approved a request for street closures for the Spring Festival on March 22; and ordered a general and special election for May 2024.