Staff writer
Pocatello project falls through; Hayden there to pick up loose change
HAYDEN -- Now you see it, now you don't, and now you do again because Pocatello's loss just became Hayden's gain.
The $500,000 rebound courtesy of efforts by the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization takes a chunk removed from Hayden's Government Way revitalization project only a month ago and puts it right back where it was supposed to be -- in street improvements between Miles and Dakota avenues.
In June, council members were faced with a nearly $800,000 shortfall in construction costs for the $3.2 million project. That was a $400,000 hike from a deficit predicted last April when community development director Lisa Key first warned that construction costs couldn't keep up with the rise in asphalt and concrete prices.
Faced with a number of complicated and unappealing options, the council then voted to postpone the road improvements for an unspecified time. At the time of the vote, councilman Anson Gable blasted the city for misplaced priorities even when a black cloud was already gathering over other projects.
When council members then picked the devil over the deep blue sea, scaling back the Miles-Dakota portion of the Government Way project, there wasn't even time to warn businesses in the affected area that this was coming.
Instead, they read about it in the next morning's Press.
But Hayden community development director Lisa Key told the council Tuesday night, "Just a month ago, we were scratching our heads, wondering what are we going to do to pay for it. ... Today, I'm happy to be here with good news."
Key said she learned in a teleconference call Monday afternoon with KMPO's executive director Glenn Miles and members of the federal highway urban fund's urban balancing committee that a pricey Pocatello project had "fallen off the table," leaving $2.5 million up for grabs.
"There was a lot of demand for that money," she said. "The bottom line is, Glenn came back with $500,000 for us."
Key said they were running into the Idaho Transportation Department's fiscal year and if they didn't have all their ducks in a row by July 31, Key said, their own project could have been swept off the table.
Now they're back in the game.
"We still have $221,000 to make up, but we had that in impact fees and we have enough of a buffer so it won't impact projects in our capital program," she said. "We're OK now."
The saving grace phone call came on Monday.
"We had to get the final design plans in and we kept our project whole in the event we could get the extra funds," Key said. "But we also submitted a revised plan, just in case we had to cut Miles-Dakota."
Key said she was "very excited. I knew we would have some challenges, but we were working very, very hard to do whatever we had to do to get the project done," she said.
"I knew it was not ever going to be any cheaper to do that section of road."
Lynn Berk can be reached at (208) 664-8176, ext. 2016, or at lberk@cdapress.com.
