City Council OKs Messer Street Project expansion

Council members got the latest scoop on city projects galore at Monday’s Rhinelander Common Council meeting.

Delivered by Mark Barden of Town and Country Engineering, the update filled much of the meeting, held at Rhinelander City Hall.

The Messer Street Area Improvement Project, begun last year, led the report. “We’re a month or two away from wrapping that project up from the original bid,” said Barden. 

However, he pointed out, the roughly $10 million project is about $1.7 million under budget, preventing it from taking full advantage of USDA Rural Development funding. 

“How Rural Development works is, you have to go through all the loan funding before you get a penny of that grant funding,” he explained. “So, where we’re sitting on the budget … the city has about $440,000 of loan funding yet to spend until you get to the grant funding.”

Rural Development has given the go-ahead to extend the scope of the Messer Street project, he reported, so also on the agenda were two resolutions for proposed additional work — involving both the Chippewa Drive and Oneida Avenue lift stations, and three additional blocks of Thayer Street — to help get the city the biggest bang for this project’s bucks.

Upgrades to the Chippewa and Oneida lift stations “would be 100% Rural Development cost, because those are a sewer cost,” Barden explained.

“...With the addition of the one block of Thayer, Rural Development will pay 100% of the street costs; that’s sidewalk, restoration, curb, asphalt, the whole works, as well as the sewer costs, obviously. They will not pay the water costs. So, if we’re looking at, let’s call it $800,000 in construction costs for those three blocks of Thayer, we’re anticipating about $250,000 of that will be water costs, water main … Everything will be paid for through Rural Development, less the water main costs. So you’re looking at, say, call it $900,000 of work, that would cost the city $250,000, which is a good deal.”

He said Rural Development has also agreed to the purchase of televising equipment for the city. “Right now (Rhinelander) contracts out televising of sewer, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer to outside contractors,” he explained. “Rural Development would allow the city to purchase their own televising equipment. We’re looking at $80,000 to $100,000 for that, which would be 100% grant.

“So, what we’re looking to do with adding these projects, just the lift station work will put you into the grant funding,” he summed up. “So, now you’re looking at the televising and the three blocks of Thayer is all grant work, less, of course, the roughly $250,000 in water.”

City finance director/treasurer Wendi Bixby was on hand and indicated the city has the budget to cover that $250,000.

The supervisors approved both resolutions for amendments to the agreement with Town and Country Engineering Inc. for design and construction management services for additional work in the Messer Street Area Improvement Project. “They will be fully funded, we anticipate, by Rural Development with loan grant funding,” said Barden.

Other projects

Barden touched on several other city projects:

• TID 10: “That’s extending utilities to the potential development south of Shepard Lake Road,” explained Barden. “We have those plans, I would say, at 95% … We’ve been talking to the Town of Pine Lake, because Shepard Lake Road is a town road, and just working out some details with them, and we’ll have a meeting with the developer, just kind of finalize what they want for utilities out there. That project’s about ready to bid. We have to finalize some lift station design work on that, and we’re hoping to get that out (in) May …We're still waiting on permits from DOT on that one.”

• The 26th Street projects, Brown, Frederick, Timber, Alban, and mill and overlay on Phillips Street: “Those plans and specs are also at 95%. Since last time we discussed this, we have added some sanitary sewer, some water main, and a little bit of storm sewer on that project, just in areas where they’re failing … We’re waiting to see if the city gets LRIP funding …we don’t know where it’s going to fall, the city may get zero, but we need to see where we are with LRIP funding before we can bid that project.” 

• Wells 7 and 8: “We have two months of pilot testing complete. We’re anticipating the pilot testing to go until September, but we will have plans and specs submitted to DNR in June of this year for Safe Drinking Water funding. We’re still on pace for bidding that December of this year and starting construction in March of 2027.” 

• Spruce Area project: “We’re still working on the design. Now that the snow hopefully is going away and doesn’t come back, we’re going to be wrapping up some final survey in that area, and we’ll wrap up that final design in 2026. We’ll bid that probably January, February of ’27, and that will be a ’27 construction project as well.”

• Coolidge Shepard project: “We’re working with DOT on that. We had some design changes there. We’re requesting additional funding, and that project may be put off to 2028, which will actually work pretty good with the sewer water lining that we’ll be doing on Coolidge. It’s going to be separate from the DOT project. What we’re trying to do is line the water main. That will give it some structural integrity … we don’t want water main breaks once that road is done.”

• Menominee Drive: “We wrapped that up last year. We’re seeking reimbursement from DOT on that for LRIP funding. That’s about $425,000, and we’ll do a final walkthrough on that this spring.”

Other highlights

Among other highlights of the meeting, the council:

 • Heard from city clerk Austyn Zarda that absentee ballots for the April 7 selection have been mailed. In-person voting began at Rhinelander City Hall March 25, and continues Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Polls will be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, and city of Rhinelander residents will vote at the Hodag Dome. 

• Approved a proposal from Aqualis for the televising and cleaning of sewer mains on Spruce Street for $13,125.

• Approved the Certified Survey Map for parcels RH-9012 through 0601 and RH-9012-0602, to reconfigure the two existing parcels “to make them more marketable,” according to land surveyors Maines & Associates. 

• Approved poll workers Richard Martin and Robert Kirschner as submitted by the city clerk.

• Held a closed session, with no results, to confer with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved.

Council president Carrie Mikalauski chaired the meeting in the absence of mayor Kris Hanus. City supervisor Leigh Ann Felton was also absent.

The next regular monthly meeting of the Rhinelander Common Council will be held Monday, April 13, at 6 p.m. at Rhinelander City Hall. 

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].