County awards bid for new boat ramp at Miller Dam to Haas

Haas and Sons was awarded the contract to replace the county-owned boat landing at Miller Dam (Chequamegon Waters Flowage.)

On Tuesday, members of the county’s buildings and grounds committee accepted the low bid of $152,121.70 to do the project under wet conditions.

According to buildings and grounds supervisor Joe Svejda, they had bid the work asking for contractors to bid either using coffer dams and removing the water from the landing for the work to take place, or doing it underwater.

The bids for option 1, which included dewatering, were significantly more expensive than doing it under water conditions.

With the county having a fixed amount to spend on the project from grant funds, the decision was made at the recommendation of the project engineers to accept the lower cost second option of doing the work in the water.

Svejda explained the county received a state grant to cover half of the project costs with the county using federal ARPA funds to cover the remaining half of the work. The total project has a budget of about $254,000 which includes both the actual work and about $33,000 in engineering fees.

Svejda said awarding the bid was just one step in what has been a long process. He said the county is awaiting word on approval of the permit from the DNR to do the work. He said the DNR has until May 4 to take action on the permit after which time the county can move ahead with doing the work.

In taking action on awarding the bid, committee members also authorized Svejda to accept the second place bid from Pember Construction to do the work if Haas decides to back out of it.

In other business, committee members: Gave their blessing to winter sports area manager Sarah Matyka to seek out donations and support for projects at the Winter Sports Area including efforts to upgrade and replace the cross country skis at the facility. She said she wanted the approval of the committee before approaching groups or applying for grants.

Supported allowing an individual wishing to teach Pilates classes to rent the multipurpose building one or two days a week at the half day rate of $35 per rental. Committee member Lorie Floyd noted that they would have an issue renting to the person for any other purpose and that with the county looking for money they should be open to renting the facilities more often. County clerk Andria Farrand noted they black out dates such as during the fair or other county functions when the facilities are not available for use.

Approved replacing the 2010 Kubota mower used by the buildings and grounds department with a similar but new model at a projected cost of about $51,000. Svejda said they are looking at an almost direct replacement of the one the department has used the past 14 years. It has a mow deck for summer use and a snowblower that attaches to it for snow removal in the winters. The current machine has about 1,700 hours of use. Svejda said the technicians who work with the machine praise it as having needed very few repairs. Funds for the equipment replacement are in the 2024 department budget.