Main Street Construction Moving Northwards to Downtown Area

Work at the Railroad Crossing

“We’re going to switch gears a little bit and start on sections from Beech to Oak, so as soon as we get completed from Park to Oak which will begin around the start of February, we’re going to tackle the downtown Lamar sections,” explained Tony Gregorich of American Civil Constructors to the Lamar City Council January 22^nd.

He added that the main focus will be on the downtown area before the project begins more work between Grant Street and the Lamar Canal. “We’ll start with the waterlines on the south side of the railroad tracks to the south side of Beech.  This will be our transition section at the tracks as we work on the western side of Main Street,” he said and added that the main focus will now be south of the railroad tracks.  The work will include the removal of the median along this stretch of the highway.

Angie Cue, Lamar’s Main Street Coordinator, said merchants will receive an official notice of the project that will impact their storefronts for the next several months. Gregorich said he has already been in contact with the merchants on the waterline project and flyers will also be distributed laying out the construction plans.  The project is still expected to continue into the early part of 2019 before it is completed.

During the council meeting, City Administrator, John Sutherland noted that resident’s fees per line for the E-911 Emergency Phone Service will be raised from $0.70 a month to $1.40 to cover the cost of operation throughout the county service area. “The Authority Board was successful in their application to the PUC requesting this rate increase,” he said, adding it was the first increase the board has ever had and it should make a significant difference in the operation budget of the emergency service.  “Both the council and the commissioners are doing  an outstanding job in supporting the monthly operations and we’re looking for a place where we have the ability to operate as well as any other facility in the state.”

Lamar Resident, Kim VanHook addressed the council on the recent outages that have occurred with the local television service from Charter Communications. “We have had at least three outages of several hours duration over the past several weeks,” she stated, noting that facebook posts have shown some customers receiving rebates from the company ranging from several dollars up to several hundred. “I’d like to know how you go about this and I think the city should look into alternatives for our cable service based on their past performance,” she told the council.  Mayor Roger Stagner said the council will look into any possible alternatives, but believed the choices were very slim.  The city signed a service contract with Charter last year.

By Russ Baldwin