Hurley council hit with added $7,000 for County D project

By RALPH ANSAMI

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Hurley — With a March 30 date for letting bids not far off, the Hurley City Council decided this week to spend $7,000 more to advance the County D road extension than was previously planned.

On Wednesday, Jeff Seamandel, of MSA Professional Services, told council members that the Union Pacific Railroad was asking $10,000 for easements on two parcels needed for the County D project.

Mayor Joe Pinardi said a parcel from another railroad company was obtained for $1,500, so $3,000 was included in the project budget for the other two parcels.

“All of the land has been acquired, except for the two railroad easements,” Seamandel told the council.

Pinardi said Union Pacific had not used that rail line stretch for 55 to 60 years and he wasn’t pleased the railroad wanted that much for the property easement.

Faced with the delay, Pinardi said of the project, “We wanted it done 10 years ago.”

“If you do not pay the $10,000, there will not be a project this year,” Seamandel said in a committee meeting before a closed session of the city council on Wednesday.

In the closed meeting that followed, Pinardi said council members agreed to pay the $10,000. The money will come out of the Tax Increment District fund.

If the project would have been delayed, Seamandel warned it would cost the city more in engineering fees.

The original intent of the project was to extend County D from near the golf course to Wisconsin 77, near the industrial park, so semi rigs could bypass downtown Hurley, but the project has since been scaled down.

The rigs would have come off U.S. 2 near the credit union.

The new road will run from Wisconsin 77 for about a half mile, prompting a “road to nowhere” reference a few years ago.

The remainder of the extension could be completed in the future, if funding becomes available.

A-1 Excavating, of Bloomer, was the general contractor for both the utility and lift station work on the extension project.

The city obtained $950,000 for the design and construction work on the project through federal funding and the rest will be paid for through the TID.