City approves resurfacing portion of Mulberry Street
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 6, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
The Goldsboro City Council approved a measure that will allow a portion of Mulberry Street to be resurfaced.
During its work session Monday night, the Goldsboro City Council approved a measure that will allow resurfacing of Mulberry Street from Center Street to James Street.
It will cost more than $20,000 and will be rolled into the city's ongoing street resurfacing project being performed by Barnhill Contracting Company.
The resurfacing project is necessary because the city contracted to replace a 10-inch water line along Mulberry Street in the area, leaving the street in disrepair after the water line was replaced.
Assistant City Manager Randy Guthrie said the water line replacement was necessary because an older, 6-inch line was in place and needed to be upgraded.
This work was performed last October.
"The installation of that line left, essentially, an asphalt patch the length of the road when we were completed with the installation, as well as some lateral cuts for (utility) services," Guthrie said.
That section of Mulberry Street was selected for the work by the city out of any other street in need of resurfacing because of the work that has already been completed with the downtown Streetscape project.
"We've already done a lot of paving work downtown with Streetscape, and Center Street was just done," Guthrie said. "You have this big asphalt patch (on Mulberry Street) running the length of the road, and we established that it needs resurfacing and after replacing the water line we thought it was a good time to go ahead and do it."
Guthrie said the resurfacing of the block will begin whenever he "gives them (Barnhill Contracting Co.) the go-ahead."
Part of the resurfacing project throughout the city consists of upgrading utility services in the area, including underground sewer lines.
The asphalt patchwork is being conducted by Barnhill Contracting Company, while the upgrades to utility services are being performed by a separate company.
This is causing a delay in roads getting the patchwork and resurfacing they need, due to the work being divided between two separate companies.
Questions were raised by city council members during the work session about the time it was taking to complete the resurfacing projects, with several council members urging the city to press both contractors that are part of the resurfacing effort to fix the obstacles they create in a timely fashion.
During the work session, City Engineer Marty Anderson said the current agreement with Barnhill Contracting Company for the resurfacing work expires in March.
"One thing I have done is gone to the sewer contractor and asked them to put -- instead of ABC stone -- to put binder in there (the holes in the streets created by utility work) so it would give it an asphalt surface, but I guess with the weather and all that, the asphalt plant hasn't been running," Anderson said.
District 2 council member Bill Broadaway urged the city to take quick action on getting the streets resurfaced or patched.
"Every street cut now turns into an obstacle," Broadaway said. "And I know we've had a lot of rain. But every street cut is an obstacle. It seems to be this same contractor that did all the stuff down on Chestnut Street with that debacle we had down there."
Mayor Chuck Allen took it one step further, saying the contractor hadn't done much of anything for the city to improve road conditions.
Allen said the contractor needed to fix some of the holes in the streets instead of creating more.
"So it seems like we ought to slow down on digging holes and fix some of the holes we've got," Allen said.