Council directs money to street repairs

The cool, wet spring of 2008 is keeping Hutchinson area farmers out of the fields and delaying the planting of crops. But Hutchinson city street workers have noticed a couple of things have grown well this spring — potholes and frost boils.

Public Works Manager John Olson told the City Council Tuesday that repairing those problems was threatening to cut into the department’s planned summer seal-coating projects. He estimated repairing frost boils had already eaten $35,000 of the department’s maintenance budget.

“That basically would eliminate our 2008 seal-coating,” he said. “We have just $20,000 (for maintenance) for the rest of the year.”

Mayor Steve Cook’s idea of replacing that money with $35,000 taken from the city’s excess bond fund was approved by the rest of the council. That puts the seal-coating projects back on track.

Read more about city streets in the May 15 Leader.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)