Construction bids are in for the Village of Mineola’s project to bring flood relief to residents in the Bruce Terrace area as part of an intermunicipal project with the Town of North Hempstead and Nassau County.
Thomas Rini, superintendent of the village Department of Public Works, told the village board at last Wednesday night’s board meeting a low bidder emerged from the bids opened last week and he is currently reviewing that contractor’s qualifications to do the work.
“In some areas we have deep pipe work going down 12 feet and I want to make sure the bidder has experience with that,” Rini said.
If he’s satisfied with the prospective contractor’s prior experience, he said, he will seek the board’s approval for a contract so construction can start.
The village’s portion of the project will cost $1.7 million.
Rini has said the village’s work will include installation of two new drainage manholes, four new catch basins and removal of approximately 300 feet of existing 18-inch-drainage pipe to be replaced with a new 30-inch drainage pipe on Bruce Terrace.
The Town of North Hempstead board voted on Tuesday night to retain an unnamed contractor for its portion of the project.
The total cost for the town’s portion of the project is $1.1 million. Kaiman has said the town may take money from its own capital resources or seek additional outside funding to pay for the work.
The town is responsible for installing new catch basins and drainage pipes on three or four streets adjacent to the Mineola-Carle Place border. It will also construct a catch basin on Mineola land at the Old Motor Parkway property north of Westbury Avenue.
At Wednesday night’s Mineola Village Board meeting, village attorney John Spellman said an intermunicipal pact with North Hempstead was finally ready to be signed. The agreement obliges the town to build and maintain the new catch basin after it’s completed. Originally, the town was seeking an option to limit its responsibility for the catch basin for five years. But Spellman said he talked town officials out of that
“We told them we didn’t think it would stop raining after five years and they agreed,” Spellman said, drawing laughs from the board and residents.
The overall cost of the three-pronged project to relieve recurrent flooding on the border of Mineola and Carle Place is $2.4 million.
State Sen. Jack Martins restored the $2.4 million in funding last year after the original grant, which was secured by the Town of North Hempstead through then-Sen. Craig Johnson, was left in limbo after Johnson lost his seat to Martins in the 2010 election.
The county’s $1.7 million portion of the project includes installation of 1,715 feet of 36-inch or 48-inch interceptor pipe on Sheridan Boulevard from Raff Avenue, crossing Westbury Avenue and entering the Mineola catch basin.
On another construction front, Rini said milling the surface of Jericho Turnpike, the second phase of the state Department of Transportation’s project to resurface the roadway, would start on Monday night, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. and would continue for three successive nights from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. each night. That grinding of the roadway surface down from four to eight inches would alternately close eastbound and westbound lanes each night, leaving at least one lane in either direction open.
In a meeting with the resident DOT engineer overseeing the project, Rini was told that Flushing-based Tully Construction, the company retained by the DOT to do the work, would be proceeding on the project in three successive segments. It will first prepare the roadway for resurfacing from Herricks Road to Willis Road, then from Willis to Frank Road and from Frank to Glen Cove Road.
Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss said the completion of the Jericho project would be a welcome occasion.
“It’s been a long time coming but we will have a new road afterward,” Strauss said.
The DOT had originally planned to resurface the road in New Hyde Park from the Queens border to Herricks Road, but state Sen. Jack Martins interceded to convince the DOT to extend the resurfacing project through Mineola to Glen Cove Road.
Daniel Whalen, village buildings superintendent, said that the Winthrop-University Hospital project for construction of a new diabetes and obesity research center at Mineola Boulevard and 2nd Street has begun. The first stage entails razing Winthrop’s existing community center at that location and Whalen said he was issuing a demolition permit for that phase of the project to begin.
In other developments:
• Horton Highway resident Mac Altemus said two “brazen” daytime burglary attempts – one successful – had occurred last Saturday afternoon.
Two men cut through a screen door in one instance, but failed to gain entry to the house. They then kicked through the front door of another house unoccupied by its single female resident at the time.
The woman, who declined to be identified, said the burglars had stolen cash and jewelry. Based on video footage from a neighbor’s surveillance camera, she said the men appeared to be Hispanic and entered the house and left with the stolen goods in 11 minutes.
“That sort of thing in daylight disturbs me,” Altemus said.
Strauss said he was also disturbed by it and said he would contact the Nassau County Police Department 3rd Precinct and request more frequent patrols in the area.
He encouraged resident who observed any unusual activity to “be a good witness,” to write down license plates or other relevant information and report it to police.
