Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By PAMELA JANSSON
Hurley — The Hurley City Council learned on Monday evening that a new housing development expected to break ground by now has been delayed until later this fall.
“We’ve been going round and round on the wetlands issue,” said Mayor Joanne Bruneau.
She said she has learned from Carol Keen, vice president for real estate development for Impact Seven in Rice Lake, that in order to avoid any association with wetlands, the originally planned housing site now must be adjusted slightly.
Impact Seven was instrumental in spearheading the project and its funding.
“It’s probably going to delay the project until October,” said the mayor in relation to the pending groundbreaking.
The location is on Hurley’s infamous “road to nowhere,” which is north of the Cary Mine Market on WI-77.
According to Bruneau, Coleman Engineering of Ironwood will design a new site plan for the project.
In other news, Gary Laguna of the Department of Public Works reported that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is requiring the city to run an advertisement in relation to an error that occurred in recent water testing.
“They are requiring us to provide Tier 2 notification (that we failed to sample within the required window of time) despite it being a lab error,” said Laguna.
He added that the city was in no way at fault and that a resubmitted water sample outside of the required window had been necessary only because the related laboratory had been responsible for erroneous testing of the initial water sample.
Nevertheless, he said the state requires the city to report the matter.
Council members also took the following action, with the first three matters having been recommended by the city’s Finance Committee:
—Approved a proposal from CliftonLarsonAllen, LLC for a sewer rate study.
—Approved a quote for $5,092 from Angelo Luppino Inc. in Iron Belt for walking trail repair.
—Approved the funding of $36,196.69 for a sewer lift repair.
—Approved a pay request of $601,957.49 in relation to the 2nd Avenue reconstruction project.
—Learned via a report from MSA Professional Services Inc. that the U.S. 51 utility reconstruction project is now in Phase 3, which involves replacing sanitary sewer and water utilities from Silver Street to beyond Bernard Street. A road base going north of Silver Street also is being constructed. Traffic now is being diverted along Silver Street to Fifth Avenue.
All votes were unanimous.
Hurley Fire Chief Brock Swartz also reported that the Fire Hall will host an open house on July 27 from 9 a.m. to noon in conjunction with the city’s Heritage Days celebration.
Police Chief Chris Colassaco said that Silver Street will be closed from 1 to 5 p.m. on July 27 in order to accommodate the 2 p.m. Heritage Days parade. He said that traffic will be rerouted accordingly.
The council’s next regular meeting will be out of sequence with the regular second Tuesday of the month. Instead, the meeting will be on Aug. 12 in order not to conflict with the Aug. 13 primary election.
