By Jill Fennema –

Last week Wednesday, the Edgerton City Council passed a resolution to approve the USDA loan of $4.8 million and the grant in the amount of $828,000; these funds, along with state funding that is yet to be approved, will be used to complete the city’s infrastructure improvements from the city shop, up Main Street to the corner of Howard and then a two-block area in the middle of town. (The map of this area was published on April 6.)

The council also approved a professional services agreement with DGR to perform all the engineering work that will be necessary for that project. The price tag for completing that work was $1.4 million. The work that DGR will perform includes preliminary design, securing construction bids, securing easements, construction staking, project supervision and closeout, documentation, etc. Trent Bruce and Riley Reinhart have already put many hours into the project and will continue to do so for the next year.

Next spring, the project will be let out for bids and once construction commences, there will be a DGR engineer overseeing the project every day that work is happening.

The council went over the 73 page document with Trent and Riley and asked several questions.  The layout and formatting of the agreement is approved by the USDA Rural Development program.

Referring to the $1.4 million fee, Trent said, “It’s a big number, but it’s a lot of work. Some of that work is already done.”

Later in the meeting, City Clerk Joel Farrington commented that he was disappointed with how much the city qualified for. He had hoped that there would be more funding available to get more work done. With that said, he informed the council of other funding sources he has looked at. He has written US Representatives Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar to ask them to earmark additional funds for these types of projects. He is also working on a grant application to gain additional federal assistance.