Fox Point Village Board Won't Set Decision Date for Bridge

The held a special meeting Monday night to hear a presentation from Conor Neelan, an engineer from Cold Spring Design in Fort Atkinson, and his perspective of the — the future of which is still unknown since its closure in October. 

Neelan suggested only replacing the individual pieces of the bridge that are in most need of repair and doing so in a top-down approach. Instead of bringing in heavy machinery that may damage much of the vegetation, Neelan's approach would save those trees and plants.

However, the board did not feel comfortable making any kind of motion after Neelan's discussion and took no action.

"This board is collectively looking for enough information so that the board can collectively make an informed decision on how to proceed," Village President Michael West said. "This board is looking for that critical mass of information so that they feel that they could make a good and prudent and thoughtful decision on the position of this bridge. This board is taking so long because it... wants to make sure it's making a well-informed decision."

And after receiving additional questions from the audience on why it's taking so long to come up with a solution, West reminded residents that a decision will need to be made - eventually.

"I don't know when it will happen, but it will happen when I get a sense from my colleagues that we've gone that extra mile and turned over that last stone, that we really have done what we can to prudently spend taxpayer dollars," he said.

The village also had engineering reports completed by Ayers, a structural engineering firm. Ayers suggested one option to fixing the bridge would be to remove the bridge in large pieces and fix those pieces individually.

But Neelan suggested asking Ayers for a cost estimate on only replacing the most damaged pieces to get the bridge back to a safe standard of use in a more timely and economic fashion.

West asked Village Manager Susan Robertson to have Director of Public Works Scott Brandmeier contact Ayers for this request. This information may be presented at the next board meeting on May 10.

"It's not going to be bulldozers and chain saws," West said. "I was pretty dang clear on that several weeks ago. This is the village of Fox Point, I think we can do it, but we will get there step, by step, by step."