Pine Street Project Still Has No Start Date

Nearly 16 months after Bourbon Mayor Danny Skaggs announced that the city had received a $500,000 grant to rebuild Pine Street, the project has yet to get started.

When it will begin is still to be determined.

Progress has stalled to the point that the road may be gravel by the time the Fall Festival rolls around in September.

Skaggs said on Thursday night that he has been in touch with the Meramec Regional Planning Commission and officials from Jefferson City and there is a push to get it going. A meeting is expected to be held soon.

“We have to do it by the end of the year,” Skaggs said. 

He told the board he was contacting Dick Rammstein, who was selected as the city’s engineer, to start moving the project forward.

“We should have been bidding last fall, but Dick said wait until spring,” Skaggs said. 

The bids for the project have to be approved by the Missouri Department of Economic Development, where the grant originates.

“Whoever we choose might not pass with Jefferson City,” Skaggs said.

Ward 2 Alderwoman Mary Heywood said the Bourbon Boosters has chosen “Paving Our Way Into The Future” as the Fall Festival theme, tying it in with the idea that Pine Street would be finished.

“We were assuming by the second or third week of September it would be done,” Heywood said.

Skaggs said the road may be nothing but gravel since it has to pack. On the bright side, he said, a parade rolling through the street might help pack it quicker.

Bourbon has included nearly all of the $500,000 grant in its 2019-2020 budget. 

The city began working on the project in early 2017 by getting surveys out to residents. A meeting followed to determine the city’s needs and that began a waiting game. 

The wait is still on.

Rammstein’s report proposed replacing broken curb and cutter, sidewalk, concrete driveway, curb inlets, 950 linear feet of sewer lines, laterals, manholes, 1,367 linear feet of water line, valves and service connections.

The actual road, which is in extremely poor condition, will be rebuilt with completely  new sub-base and pavement.