1A, Safe Routes to School Project

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.. ~HIEES MEMORANDUM Item I.A DATE: June 9, 2009 TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Ronald J. Moorse, City Administrator FROM: Michelle Olson, Parks and Recreation Manager Deb Bloom, City Engineer SUBJECT: Safe Routes to School Project/DNR Project Update BACKGROUND At the Council work session on March 16,2009, the Safe Routes to School Project was discussed. At that meeting, Council asked staff to review potential cost savings, identify additional funding so~rces and bring the project back for further discussion. Shortly after this meeting, the economic stimulus funding solicitation was announced. At the March 30, 2009 City Council Meeting, staffwas directed to apply for Transportation Enhancements (TE) Funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for the Safe Routes to School extra costs and the DNR Perry Park Trail Connection Project. The application for this grant (ARRA) was submitted on April 3, 2009. Staff included all costs to construct both pathways, including the drainage improvements, retaining walls, hydrant relocations, and driveway gates. The City has recently been informed that our project, now officially called the Elmer L. Andersen Memorial Trail Connections was successful in this solicitation and will be funded. The Metropolitan Council officially acted on this at their June 10, 2009 meeting. We scored 4th out of 50 projects. The top 10 projects were funded. While waiting to hear back on our ARRA funding application, staff continued to work on the Safe Routes to School Project issues identified at the March Worksession. Below is what staff found out during these investigations: How much of the construction work could our Public Works staff do in order to reduce the cost of the project? Response: Deb Bloom, Michelle Olson, Greg Hoag and Mike Schifsky met to discuss the possibility of our Public Works crew completing a portion of the Safe Routes to School construction project, specifically, hydrant relocation and retaining wall construction. Although our Public Works staff feel confident in their technical ability to do small construction projects, taking over the construction of a large project would take time away from our day to day tasks. Relocating 9 hydrants would occupy 5 of our full \\Metro-inet\ardenhills\Admin\Council\Agendas & Packet Information\2009\06-15-09 Worksession\Packet Information\Memo to CC re ARRA - Elmer Andersen Project Review.doc