Winter Springs approves $1.9M in infrastructure projects

Over $1.9 million in funding for various stormwater and infrastructure-related projects throughout the city were approved during the Winter Springs City Commission’s Feb. 10 meeting. 

City Manager Kevin Sweet said staff is trying to work toward identifying projects “proactively” from an infrastructure standpoint. 

“This commission just approved a number of roadway resurfacing projects, stormwater pipelining projects, improvements to the Gee Creek, a number of projects that don’t just happen by putting an agenda item together,” Sweet said. 

Among the items contained within the commission’s consent agenda that were approved are expenses to rebuild a wastewater treatment plant belt filter press, resurfacing of 22 city roads, multiple storm sewer pipelining projects and an intent to award a contract for Gee Creek erosion control countermeasures. 

“Everything costs money, and finances are always challenging, and being able to complete a lot of these projects does require money,” Sweet said. “But we’re doing a number of these things where we can, proactively, to get ahead of having to be so reactive to everything.”

What’s included?

The Commission previously in October approved a temporary lease for a belt press, used in a process to dewater wastewater solids for the wastewater treatment plants. The city currently owns one belt filter press and transports it, as needed, between the East and West wastewater treatment plants.

The refurbishment and purchase order of the belt press in total will cost about $298,000. 

To address severe bank erosion along Gee Creek, which residents have cited as a contributor to flooding issues during large storms and hurricanes, city staff recommended a contract award of about $763,000 to the Cathcart Construction Company. 

Seventy-five percent of the project will be funded by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, with the city making up the other 25% of the cost with a contribution of about $191,000. 

The storm sewer pipelining projects, budgeted at $540,000, include locations such as Howell Creek Drive, Winter Springs Boulevard, Deer Run and Brown Bear Court. According to the commission agenda, those projects will address “repeated depressions in the ground surface area caused by the degradation of the existing 30-inch storm sewer pipe.”

Resnick questions resurfacing same road twice

The city roads resurfacing project, which totals $905,000, was questioned by Commissioner Cade Resnick, who brought up concerns regarding the resurfacing of roadways on the west side of the city, such as Alton or Sailfish Road, without the completion of culvert stormwater expansions.

“Would we be better off waiting for that study to be done and then fix both the culverts and all the stormwater work there before we pave?” Resnick asked. “Only because we would be cutting up a lot of that roadway and everything … I like us doing it, we talk about that area a lot, but I would hate to waste the money that we would put into doing that to then have to go back.”

“So the problem here is, and I get what you’re saying, we get the rates and we’re paying what we’re paying to have 22 streets paved all at once, because we’re having 22 streets paved at once,” Mayor Kevin McCann said. “If we carve them out, we may be waiting a year or more. We get that price because we’re doing them all at once. So we would effectively have to revisit the consent order, pull that back out.”

Public works director Phil Hursh told the commission that the stormwater system study and conceptual designs would be due in August of this year but that it could be two years before designs were implemented. 

“In the meantime, those roads are in horrible condition right now, the roads down at that section of the west side of town, and if we let them go any further, they’re going to get more costly to repair,” Hursh said. “It’s horrible, so we need to go and resurface that road as well as the other roads in the community. So yes, there is a timeline issue here.”

Hursh said the city had a street priority list it began working off of in 2017 that identified roads most in need of work and resurfacing using a 1 to 100 ranking system, with lower scores indicating a greater need for repairs while roads with a score of 100 were considered to be in “perfect condition.”

“All the streets that are on that list we’ve caught up with in the last three years,” Hursh said. “So the worst streets now are ranked like 75 or higher. In addition to that, Hurricane Ian was a game-changer on that whole study, because Hurricane Ian came in and it destroyed the roads that were actually considered great condition, like Winter Springs Boulevard, for example.”

More workshops continue the job of fixing infrastructure

In addition to the approved projects, the Commission also discussed continuing with previous plans to set up a workshop to focus on critical infrastructure needs, such as issues with the city’s wastewater and stormwater systems. City manager Kevin Sweet said those discussions could not really be “unpacked” simply as an agenda item, necessitating the workshop. 

“We’ve talked about this being a dedicated meeting to have these questions answered, have this dialogue and have this discussion,” Sweet said. 

The proposed workshop would focus first on the city’s wastewater systems, the goal of which McCann said would be to offer insight into and help commission members effectively convey information to residents. 

“Each one of us, and every resident that wants it, should have a really clear idea of what is the wastewater technology that we have existing, what are the problems there, what is the new technology that we’re going to build, why did we choose that over the last several years, how are we paying for it and what’s the benefits in the long term,” McCann said. 

Commissioner Victoria Bruce added the workshop would help to clarify the timeline of the system improvements as well. 

“We’re just talking wastewater, and it’s a workshop because that’s a heavy lift in itself … and then after we get that, then we’re going to be working on budget,” McCann said. “That’s coming. We’ll try to get in one good one with wastewater before the budget.”

Sweet said it would be important to have city consultants Carollo Engineers involved with the system’s design and included in the discussion.

“We also are in conversations [for construction management at-risk projects], which is an important partner in this discussion as a whole, and we’re not there yet,” Sweet said. “And the city attorney and I discussed this the other day, about moving that process along and identifying a proposed contract with them and conversations with them … I think they’re willing to participate knowing they’ve been selected, understanding that they haven’t been contracted.”

A date is not yet currently set for the workshop, but would potentially take place before April. 

With the consent agenda items approved, McCann later said he personally felt happy to see the work being done to address some of the city’s bigger issues. 

“Just even today on the consent agenda, we approved over three-quarters of a million dollars to improve Gee Creek,” McCann said. “That really is phenomenal work that needs to be done, and we need to keep doing that … Flooding and stormwater issues will continue to be an issue that we face for decades.”

“It’s important work,” McCann added. “We have to continue.”

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