Hello Friends & Neighbors ~


If you've been following our neighborhood blog here (http://www.oldnorthsalisbury.blogspot.com/) you are aware that the Miller Stsidewalk project was to be awarded at City Council yesterday. Well - at yesterday's City Council meeting the sidewalkconstruction project was awarded to a company called Carolina Siteworks. AT LAST!!! According to the bid documents, the work is to begin August 10th, however we are told that the contractor can start sooner if they wish. It was interesting to note that the bids came in from several contractors and ranged from roughly $67,000 (Carolina Siteworks = low bid) to roughly $109,000! One of our neighbors, familiar with the contracting world, has already assured us that Carolina Siteworks does great work and that we will be happy!


The City Council members did not discuss the crosswalk at N. Main & Miller Street. Janet Gapen, Senior City Planner, says that the contractor will do the sidewalks and handicap ramps at the intersections, but the City will do the crosswalk.


The Miller St. sidewalk is just a piece of the project to connect the NoMa neighborhood to the Salisbury Greenway. The project is being phased - (1) the Miller St. sidewalk, (2) a new sidewalk along City Park on the west side of N. Jackson St., (3) expected sometime in 2010- a new sidewalk along the north side of Lake Road along City Park toConfederate - will ultimately connect to Hurley Park pathways and further existing sidewalks that take us to the Greenway. We asked if the N. Jackson St. sidewalk would be done in conjunction with the Miller St. sidewalk. It's possible, however the Miller St. work is contracted and the Jackson St. work will be done by the City. We should plug getting the work done as near to simultaneously as possible so as not to disrupt the neighborhood unnecessarily.


About the pedestrian level lighting we wanted so badly... it's not going to happen...yet. The contract calls for the conduit to be put in place for the lighting that MAY come in the future. We asked Janet Gapen and Craig Powers, City Engineer, if the neighborhood were to come up with the funds to get the lighting, what then? We asked if there was a 'catalog' for lighting we could choose from to get cost estimates. Dan Michelson (sp?), Chief Engineer, overheard this discussion and said that if we got the big streetlights we are used to seeing, that they would be free and the City would maintain them. If we chose decorative pedestrian level lighting, the costs - depending on design - are significantly higher and that the City would not pay for this but they WOULD maintain them and pay the electric bill. We should talk about this as a group - it would make a great fund raiser and something that could set a precedent here for the neighborhood.


Lastly, Sue McHugh, Old North Salisbury Neighborhood Association President, spoke on behalf of the neighborhood at the open forum at the end of the Council session and thanked Council for approving this, saying how excited and grateful we were to have the long-awaited project at last begin, how much it would mean to us to have sidewalk access to our parks, places for families to walk, and how we very much hoped that this was the first step toward the balance of the work that was outlined in the North Main Small Area Improvement Plan. She says, "Hey - to walk on water - first you gotta get outa the boat!!"


So . . . look for construction to finally begin on W. Miller St. Thanks so much to all of the neighbors who have taken part in the development of the N. Main Plan, to those who have shown so much patience in waiting for this project to come to fruition, and to those who did NOT show patience and kept bringing this to the forefront so that we could be the squeaky wheel!