New sidewalk installed at city hall

Over the past few weeks, work took place in front of the Newton City Hall to help direct traffic between the city offices and the police department.

A new sidewalk was added between the city hall front doors and the sidewalk that leads to the police department. Also, a sign for the police department was placed in immediate view to help alleviate residents using the wrong door.

“We get a lot of people looking for our police department and they walk in the front doors and due to security they have to walk all the way around (to get to the police department from city hall),” said Keith Laube, director of Newton Public Works. “A lot of times when they go around they cut across the grass so we put in a little section of sidewalk there.”

Also planned for next week is a project to redo the handicap ramp and curb directly outside of city hall.

Laube also wanted to address why contractors from outside of Newton are selected to do work over local contractors. That was the case with the new sidewalk project that took place over the summer, which was done by a company from Pella.

“We went out to bid and notified all of the local contractors and we got a bid from Pella, Grinnell and Brooklyn. Typically if it is state or local dollars we have to take the low bid anyway. People think that we didn’t want to hire a local contractor but none bid,” Laube said.

He also said that because of the economy picking up, a lot of contractors have not been placing any new bids because of already full schedules. Local contractors are always notified and invited to bid, though, when work in the city comes up, he said.

An upcoming project for the city is a remodel of city hall that includes removing and replacing carpet, removing wall paper, repainting the interior walls and refinishing the council chamber dais. The city opened up bidding but as of the closing date, they had not received any bids.

“We went out and did the contractors in Newton, well nobody (bid) or they didn’t have the expertise,” Laube said. The city will now expand their radius to the surrounding communities in the coming months in order to complete the project.

Contact Staff Writer Jamee A. Pierson at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com.