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Rice County awards $3.55 million in highway contracts and updates 10‑year road plan
Summary
Rice County approved three highway contract awards — milling/reclamation and two overlay projects to Crane Creek Asphalt and a retaining wall replacement to ClearScape Outdoor Services — totaling about $3.55 million, and adopted an updated 10‑year plan and an out‑of‑state travel request for county engineers.
The Rice County Board approved multiple highway contract awards after receiving bid summaries from County Engineer Dennis Luby.
Luby recommended awarding contract 2673 (milling and reclamation on County Road 19/Glenview Trail) to Crane Creek Asphalt for $1,101,974.64; contract 2674 (replacement of timber retaining walls on County Road 93/Western Avenue) to ClearScape Outdoor Services for $355,220; and contract 2675 (two overlay projects, including County Road 1 and County Road 25) to Crane Creek Asphalt for $2,093,252.82. The board approved each award by voice vote.
Luby said the retaining walls were failing and it made sense to address both property owners' walls now; he noted using state aid construction funds to pay for the retaining wall work rather than local levy dollars. He described public bidding as healthy for competition: "Public bidding is a good thing," he said.
The board also approved an out‑of‑state travel request for county engineers to attend the National Association of County Engineers (NACE) annual conference in Texas in April and adopted an updated 10‑year improvement plan that combined phases and reprogrammed projects into 2028.
The combined value of the three awarded contracts is approximately $3,550,447.46. Board members voted to award contracts after motions and seconds; no roll‑call tallies were recorded in the transcript.
Next steps: county staff will proceed with contract execution and scheduling; Luby said some work (including milling/repaving) will proceed according to the contractors' schedules and planned start dates.
