Intersection painting splits council
May 21—The vote was 5-3 at Monday's City Council meeting when the administration recommended paying Venture Corporation $59,312 to pave the lines at eight intersections on 10th St. Assistant City Engineer Hitha Kadiyala said the contract will save time and money because the project is being added to other work Venture is doing.
The City Connecting Link Improvement Program (CCLIP) offers federal and state funds to cities for enhancing certain roads projects. The City has a CCLIP project starting on Tuesday, May 27, that includes pavement markings at 10th and Patton and Second and Main. Since Road Safe is already the sub-contractor through Venture Corporation for this work, the City requested a quote from them for additional pavement markings at other 10th Street intersections. Funding will come from the street repair budget.
Councilmembers raised several questions before voting to approve the recommendation. Councilman Cory Urban asked if there was a guarantee that the paint would last for a year or two, since City Administrator Logan Burns said, "The paint we have is not lasting." To answer Urban's question, there is no warranty.
"We've tried three or four different manufacturers of paint and whatever Road Safe has," Burns said. "It seems to stick a little better, but it seems like a week or two after we put that down, it's already gone." He later singled out the intersection of 10th and Washington, where the paint lasted "two weeks, maybe."
Councilman Gary Parr asked if the City has explored what is used on Interstate highways and Mayor Cody Schmidt asked if Great Bend has called other cities to see what paint they use.
"Our traffic-control specialists are working on it," Kadiyala said. "We've changed the vendors, we changed the methods, and tried every approach." She said they have spent about a year trying to figure out a solution.
Kadiyala said Road Safe has to use state-certified paint for CCLIP projects. "We have that paint as well. ... The materials have changed so much lately that we're just trying to figure out what is going on at this point." However, doing nothing is not a good option, she said. She recommended doing the work now for safety and working on researching the paint issue as well.
"It blows me away to pay if we can do it ourselves in-house," Urban said. The city will be painting other intersections this year.
Those voting "yes" to the painting contract were Kevyn Soupiset, Rickee Maddox, Alan Moeder, Jolene Biggs and Tina Mingenback. Those voting "no" were Urban, Parr and Davis Jimenez.
Councilman Parr contacted the Great Bend Tribune on Tuesday to comment on his vote.
"I'm not against painting the intersections," he said. "They absolutely need to be painted."
Parr said his "no" vote was based on the cost of the paint and the fact that it might only last two to three weeks. "This is almost $7,000 per intersection," he said. He was also concerned that there is no guarantee.
"We're just throwing caution to the wind," he said, adding the city needs to check with other cities and get more data.
The intersections that are getting pavement markings are all on 10th St. They are located at Frey Street, Kansas Ave., Main, Washington, Harrison, Grant, Patton Road, and K-96. Markings include crosswalks, stop bars, single white lines, turn arrows and double yellow lines.
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