The North Bergen Board of Commissioners approved two major street and sewer repair projects totaling nearly $600,000 at the latest meeting Wednesday.
The first one is meant to alleviate flooding near Tonnelle Avenue, where commercial construction is taking place.
The contract is for the cleaning and inspection of the storm sewer drains between 83rd and 89th Streets, and the project was awarded to contractor All-State Power Vac, Inc. of Rahway at a cost of $387,585.
“It’s a three-month project that will alleviate the flooding that takes place in that area between Tonnelle Avenue and West Side Avenue,” said township administrator Chris Pianese. “It complements the work that is already being done by Vornado Realty in their [commercial] development and will eventually include the widening of Tonnelle Avenue. All of those improvements will be tied in together.”
The second is a change order for work that was already done to 83rd Street in the same area.
“As a result to the job being done there, we decided that the street needed some milling and paving,” Pianese said. “There were some relocation delays and there was some added equipment dedicated to the job.”
That came at the cost of $207,434, and the work on that project should begin shortly, Pianese said.
“It’s just an addition to work that has already been done,” Pianese said.
In other news from the commissioners’ meeting, the township went out to bid for some improvements to the municipal pool complex that opened last year.
“The original plan was to put pavers along the walkway, but they became loose and had to be anchored in,” Pianese said. “We’ve now decided to just put in concrete. We’d rather deal with putting concrete down than dealing with taking out the pavers and putting them back in. If we go to concrete, we can have it done by the summer.”
The commissioners also approved the landscaping maintenance contract it has with Greenleaf Landscape Systems of Red Bank for lawn service and chemical fertilization. The contract with Greenleaf was for $41,875.
The township also rehired McNerney & Associates of Glen Rock to serve as the township’s real estate appraisal consultant at a cost of $2,000-to-$3,000 per estimated appraisal.
“It’s basically on a need basis, whenever we need to have a property appraised,” Pianese said.
The commissioners also signed Boswell McClave Engineering of South Hackensack for another one-year contract as the township’s professional engineering consultant, also providing services on a per-need basis, as well as an annual fee of $65,760.
Other expenditures
The commissioners also passed a resolution enabling AboveNet, Inc. to install telecommunications equipment in order to provide Internet, cable and telephone services in North Bergen.
The commissioners also passed a resolution that called for the amendment of the township’s proposal to the state Urban Enterprise Zone board, eliminating a portion of the proposal that called for the township to provide $143,612 worth of matching funds in the initial application to the state UEZ in order to install the proposed closed circuit public security system in the town.
The initial application asked for $574,450 in funding from the state UEZ in order to hire the personnel to run the closed circuit security system.
“Now, we’ve amended the proposal to eliminate the need to have a matching portion from the township,” Pianese said. “We’re now simply asking for $694,613 from the state UEZ.”
The township is making their official presentation to the state UEZ board March 12. The $2.4 million security project will be addressed to the UEZ at that time.
“There’s a chance that it could possibly get turned down,” Pianese said. “We just wanted to make sure we did things the right way before the presentation.”
The commissioners also approved the payment of $3,482,643.53 in bills to assorted vendors and contractors.
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at either OGSMAR@aol.com or jhague@hudsonreporter.com