Members of the Spencer City Council voted to table action on a storm sewer and paving project near Spencer Hospital as part of its meeting Monday night.

The recommendation to table the agenda item came from city officials, who wanted to give hospital leaders a chance to review the bids before they were accepted. The hospital has upgrades that cover about a third of the cost of the project.

"It starts out as a two-part project," City Engineer James Thiesse said. "The initial goal was to replace the pavement on East 11th Street and in doing so, we need to look at the underground. We do not have storm sewer in that neighborhood, so the decision was made to bring the storm sewer up from Eighth Street along First Avenue."

The storm sewer and paving work would also incorporate some of the side streets in the corridor from Second Avenue to Grand Avenue on the east side of town from 11th Street south to Eighth Street.

In the area between the clinic and the hospital, the hospital has off-street parking along the road that needs to be replaced.

"Now is the time to do that work," Thiesse said. "There also is some some sanitary sewer repair work being done and some manhole replacement. We want to get that removed. The hospital will connect its roof-draining system to the storm sewer system and also replace some failing pavement on Second Avenue East and 11th Street."

The city received two bids for the project. DeLoss Construction of Spencer submitted a $700,448 bid. Vaughn DeLoss Construction of Spencer came in with the low bid at $682,468. Thiesse's estimate for the work was $607,871.

"The low bid is about 12 percent over the estimate," he said. "We've seen that in a couple of lettings this year. I think it's a result of a lot of things, but there's some inflationary pressure out there. Most of that is reflected in our materials prices. All construction uses fuel and diesel fuel is $4.50 per gallon. That affects the contractor cost and we're seeing those increases dramatically over last year."

In a related item, council members also approved a loan and disbursement agreement not to exceed $1 million. The money will be used to improve the Municipal Sanitary Sewer system and further the city's Community Sewer Initiative project.

Thiesse also updated council members about the West Spencer Beltway project. The Bush Administration still needs to approve the earmark, but the Iowa Department of Transportation has has determined that the total funding will be in the neighborhood of $4.4 million.

Some of that money is available immediately after the bill is signed. The county and the city will each contribute 10 percent for the project.

That will give the project a $5.2 million budget to work with.

Highlights of the project call for a bridge over the Ocheyedan river west of Spencer. The city and county also will complete the roadway over 32nd Avenue, from where it ends currently, south to the Pete Howe road.

Having a paved route around the west side of Spencer and enhancing some of the safety of the existing roadway are a couple of the project goals.