Cheney council OKs street work

Cheney's City Council approved the city's six-year, $4.309 million transportation improvement program at its June 26 meeting - an annual event for a plan that fully funded would repair and preserve almost nine miles of streets and arterials through 2024.

"Same program, different year," Public Works Director Todd Ableman told the council.

A little over 3.85 miles is proposed for work over the next two years, beginning with repaving of Washington Street from Oakland to West Sixth streets next year. The city is planning on $552,200 in grant funding to pay for 90 percent of the $614,000 project.

Other larger projects proposed in 2019 are Golden Hills Drive from North Sixth Street to Sunset Drive, Normal Park Road from Betz to Paradise roads and Second Street from A to D streets. All told, seven projects costing $1,022,000 are proposed next year.

In 2020, the city plans to repave Mullinix Road from the city limits to State Route 904 at a cost of $275,700, with $239,100 of it coming via grant funding. Other projects include Front Street from Pine Street to Cheney-Spangle Road, B Street from SR 904 to Seventh Street and Al Ogdon Way from Betz Road to Simpson Parkway.

In 2021, Cheney is looking at using $473,900 in grant funding for work on three streets: Clay from Fourth to Sixth, Sixth from Clay to Second and Salnave from the city limits to Presley Drive - the latter accounting for $290,600 in grant funding. Also planned is work on Hollady Drive from Presley to Salnave.

The city is planning on spending $636,300 on six projects in 2022, the biggest being the $294,000 work on Second Street from Elm to SR 904 - $264,600 coming from grant funding. Crews return to Salnave Road in 2023, finishing repair work from Presley Drive to SR 904 to the tune of $489,600 - $440,600 of which is grant funded.

Of the six-year, $4.309 million total, a little over $2 million is planned grant funding, with $2.067 city funded and $224,400 in city funds set aside for grant matching funds.

Of the total, 2.8 miles are in arterials, estimated at $2.02 million while 6.14 miles is in street work, estimated at $2.07 million and paid for through the city's street preservation fund.

The council also approved two new contracts for services at the June 26 meeting. The first was for information technology support services, with the city electing to continue a relationship with Intrinium Inc.

Finance Director Cindy Niemeier said four proposals were reviewed, with Spokane-based Intrinium coming out on top. The cost of the contract will remain at its current level of $9,035 for the first year, but will increase by 1.3 percent each subsequent year of the five-year agreement.

"We were very pleased with their contract and we felt they really sharpened their pencils," Niemeier said.

The contract also contains three optional one-year extensions, and some added benefits that include 16 hours of on-site support monthly and an assigned support specialist familiar with Cheney's needs.

Some of the 24 areas of service Intrinium will provide are monitoring, 24/7 alerting, preventive maintenance, client access portal for support requests/tracking disaster recovery testing at discounted rates and Cloud-based SPAM filtering and backup.

The second contract was an agreement with Cooperative Response Center, Inc. to provide utility dispatch services for the city's Light Department. CRC estimated the annual cost to a city Cheney's size at $12,000 with the current expense for dispatch budgeted at approximately $6,000.

Finally, council approved amending the city's governmental charges and fees in order to include a new building code surcharge from the state. Residential building permits only, as defined by Engrossed 2 Senate/House Bill 1622 increased to $4.506.50 plus $2 for each additional residential unit after the first unit.

An additional state building code surcharge for commercial building permit for multi-units, also defined by E2SHB 1622, went to $2.0025.00, plus $2 for each additional residential unit after the first unit.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.