For a project that is only a few years old, the East Winterberry replacement effort has a long and storied past — city councilors decided in 2005 to replace the bridge when it was obvious that it had outlived its lifespan, but after Hurricane Wilma, officials had to shut the bridge to commercial traffic.
The Florida Department of Transportation downgraded its status from "functionally obsolete" to "structurally deficient" after the storm removed enough embankment material to compromise the integrity of the structure.
After determining that its replacement was an emergency, the city found itself tangled in a permitting fiasco with the U.S. Coast Guard, which was looking at several changes to the bridge that the city and many residents loudly protested. Among the agency's suggestions were to raise the bridge six inches, possibly rendering adjacent homes inaccessible, removing the bridge or doing an in kind replacement, an option that city officials had originally pushed for and eventually achieved.
The Coast Guard approved the permit application almost a year after other agencies, delaying the project by over a year and driving up the cost by $1.5 million.
• Budget? $5.5 million
• On budget? It depends. The delay in starting the project drove the cost up from $4 million, but city officials have yet to spend any of the funds that are now allocated to the replacement.
• Completion date? According to Tim Pinter, city project engineer, the city has no scheduled completion date but would like to be finished by hurricane season 2008.
• On schedule? No, the project should have been completed by this winter, but the permitting delay threw off the entire schedule. Pinter said they will receive a schedule for the city's approval from whichever contractor it hires.
• What are they doing now? "Nothing," Pinter said. The city is sitting on the project temporarily and has delayed the bid date until April 26.
• What will they do next? Award a contract to the lowest bidder, which will probably be done at the May 7 city council meeting.
Irish Ayes at Marco St. Pat's parade
Relay for Life: It’s all about hope
Collier All-Star basketball game
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 2
Lolala writes:
Its likely that Moss and the Council used the money for this bridge on either the STRP, legal fees defending themselves or the asbestos cleanup. Certianly the reporter should have been given a valid reason for the delay. Pinter's "Nothing" is not an acceptable response when asked what are they doing now. There is a reason for the delay and someone is also responsible for it's delay. What and who should be answered.
MarcoNo1 writes:
For the love of God, another conspiracy theorist. If you had read the whole paper you would have seen that the city audit results were clean. That means no one spent funds for anything that wasn't proper. As far as the bridge delay, read the article! The COAST GUARD is responsible! "Nothing" means the bids are out and they are waitng for them to return. Something that Kaiser should have pointed out. Would you like the name of the Coast Guard Commander so you can start a Witch Hunt over there?? We need a break from you people.
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.