Hamlet officials are still waiting for work to begin on the Starke Street rehabilitation project. As the first step, the town has been working with Starke County Surveyor Bill Crase to extend the culvert at Benninghoff Ditch.
Project engineer Lee Nagai gave an update to the Hamlet Town Council Wednesday. “I talked with the surveyor,” Nagai explained. “He said it would definitely be done by the end of the week. Now, the week’s starting to get a little thin, so we’ll see if he comes through on that, but I know he’s working at it. The contractor that he’s working with, quite frankly, is letting him down a little bit.”
Nagai said the main part of the project, which involves rebuilding Starke Street from Plymouth Street to U.S. 30, should begin in about three weeks. During Wednesday’s meeting, the Hamlet Town Council officially approved a quote for the paving work from Walsh & Kelly for $177,100. That amount is unchanged from the company’s initial proposal. Once the paving work is done, a new sidewalk will be added on the west side of the street by Covenant Concrete.
Meanwhile, the Chicago, Fort Wayne & Eastern Railroad appears to be taking steps to repair the Starke Street railroad crossing, according to Council President Dave Kesvormas. “I believe that it’s been patched,” he said. “It’s a little bit better. Supposedly, there’s some other issues that they have in there, and that’s why they got put into that, that they have to deal with that crossing and a couple others. So they’re upgrading them, and I don’t think it would be the same is kind of the word I got. So what it is, don’t know. They don’t even know, I don’t think, but they’re in the beginning stages of applying for a permit from the railway people in the Department of Transportation.”
Kesvormas said he got an update on the Starke Street railroad crossing from officials with U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski’s office.
