The Municipal Services Committee met 02/10/2025. The item that took up the bulk of the meeting was the discussion on the request to approve the sole source purchase of decorative streetlight poles for the College Avenue bridge at a cost of $88,592.
The committee ended up voting unanimously to approve the request with the expectation that prior to the Common Council meeting on 02/19/2025 city staff would provide them with information on how much plain aluminum poles would cost as compared to the proposed galvanized steel poles.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The existing poles were installed in 2009 so are only 15 years old. Normally, the city would expect to get 40 years out of decorative poles of this time; however, per Traffic Engineer Eric Lom, the College Avenue Bridge “is an extremely hostile environment. It’s about the worst possible environment that you can have because it gets a lot more salt than a regular segment of street would.”
The new galvanized steel poles they were proposing purchasing were crafted under a new process that was not available 15 years ago. They were galvanized, then primed, and then painted, so city staff expected them to last longer than the original light poles, but Engineer Lom was not certain how long they would be expected to last. When asked by Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) he said that a bare aluminum pole would be the thing that lasted the longest and would also be less expensive.
The committee members were hesitant to move forward on purchasing the proposed decorative galvanized steel poles when aluminum poles would be less expensive and more durable. However, there were issues with not moving forward with the purchase. Those included most pressingly the rising cost of both steel and aluminum light poles as a result of the tariffs. Associated with that, was the issue that if they decided to install standard aluminum poles they would potentially no longer be able to sole source the project and would have to go through a bidding process which would take even longer and potentially result in even higher costs depending on how things went with tariffs.
It was also noted that the decorative nature of the light poles tied in with the streetscaping along College Avenue between Badger Avenue and the Walter Avenue roundabout.
Director of Public Works Laura Jungwirth told the committee that the existing price for the sole sourced decorative poles was under what the city had budgeted for.
The committee ended up voting 4-0 to approve the sole source request with the expectation that, prior to the Common Council meeting on 02/19, city staff would provide them information on how long the new poles were expected to last and how much plain aluminum poles would cost in comparison.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1281845&GUID=56036FD4-8D59-4C6C-B30F-184F5CA68171
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