Homewood City Finance Committee approves Oxmoor road diet contracts, past-due invoices and personnel moves

HOMEWOOD CITY — The Homewood City Finance Committee on April 21 approved a set of contracts, invoice payments and personnel moves and carried several items to its next meeting.

The committee voted unanimously to allow the city manager to execute contracts for the Oxmoor Road “road diet” project in front of Dawson to narrow the travel lane and add on-street parking. Committee members heard that the project was budgeted at $295,000 during design and that recent estimates put the construction cost well under that amount. Councilor Smith, who presented the project, said the work will “thin Oxmoor down and add parallel parking spaces along both sides of the curb.” He and staff told the committee the final design calls for parallel (not angled) spaces and that the layout had been adjusted after meetings with property owners and the gas station tenant.

The committee was told the city would use existing paving and concrete contracts for parts of the work; staff said using the paving contract would cost roughly $58,000 and the concrete contract with Gillespie about $28,440. Committee members and staff differed slightly when calling out the exact number of new parking spaces during discussion; staff summarized the net gain as about 29 spaces. The committee…