Construction set to start on Rocky Hill Park
The Liberty Lake City Council unanimously passed the funding Tuesday for the final stages for Rocky Hill Park.
The park, at the corner of Mission Avenue and Winrock Street, will have the final stages of construction begin within the next month to month and a half.
“It is scheduled to be completed at the end of August of this year,” said city engineer Andrew Staples. “Everything should be ready for use. The grass will still be growing, so we’ll have baby grass out there, which isn’t ideal for playing on, but all the park facilities, the covered shelter, play equipment and the restrooms will be open and ready for use.”
The winning bids for the restroom facilities and covered porch were awarded to CXT Incorporated of Spokane on a bid of $100,122. The top bid for the playground equipment came from Northwest Recreation of Washington out of Naches, Wash., for $138,156.
The council also tabled a number of items for further consideration at the next council meeting later in the month. Staples presented the council with the Spokane County proposal to fix 13,000 feet of sewer pipe in Liberty Lake city limits. The majority of the construction to install new pipe and repair the roads would run from Aladdin to the city limit.
“The roads out in that area of town are already in a very poor condition,” said Staples. “We had our roads rated back in 2008 and they came up with some of the poorest rated roads as far as surface condition throughout the city. They are going to need to be repaired whether we do the repairs through the county sewer project or we wait and do it on our own. If we wait and do it on our own, we will end with a much more expensive and quite honestly, not as good a product as if we were to do it now. It could be nearly twice as much, so as opposed to a $250,000 participation project, it could be $500,000 or more.”
The council is expected to vote on whether to designate the $250,000 from the capital fund toward the project at the next council meeting.
Mayor Wendy Van Orman also brought a proposal for consideration to the council on becoming part of a Transportation Benefit District with Spokane County. The district could be passed with 60 percent of the cities and 75 percent of the population in the county passing the agreement. Van Orman pointed out that even if the city decided against the district, which would establish fees to be raised strictly for road repair and maintenance, the majority of the cities and population clause could force Liberty Lake into the agreement. The council will continue to consider whether to start a program by charging an annual vehicle fee and join the TBD at the next council meeting April 20.