NEW ULM — The City of New Ulm will reconstruct South 1st Street this summer, despite area property owners’ belief repairs were unneeded.

The New Ulm City Council ordered the 2023 Surface Reconstruction Project and authorized the Street Department to construct the project.

The project was included in the 2023 Capital Improvement Program Engineering Report adopted by the city in Nov.

The streets segments on this list are:

•German Street from 12th South Street to 16th South Street.

•State Street from 17th North Street to 19th North Street.

•North 8th Street from Broadway to Washington Street.

•North 17th Street from Franklin Street to Jefferson Street.

•South 6th Street from Broadway to German Street.

•South 1st Street from Valley Street to Front Street.

The report recommended a special assessment rate of $2,025 per residential parcel to the benefiting property while assigning an incremental benefit to larger multi-family or non-residential parcels.

These street repairs represented 12 blocks of surface reconstruction at $516,000 with $204,525 from property owners is $204,525.

A public hearing was held before the council ordered the projects to allow the public to comment on each of the six roads. During the comments for the 1st S. Street from Valley to Front Street, Cory Tiell and Randy Tiell asked the council to review the proposal.

Cory said the road was in great condition and he did not believe there was a need to resurface. He felt other roads needed the repair more than 1st South.

Randy Tiell said this section of the street received half the truck traffic Valley Street received. He said this road section was where many trucks turned. Despite this, he believed the road was in great condition compared to the section of Valley Street. He felt a new surface was unlikely to hold as well as this older section.

“If there were was big potholes I would say go for it,” Randy Tiell said, “but I think this road will go another five years.”

City Engineer Joe Stadheim said the reason the road was on the list is because it scored low on the roadway rating. Out of a possible score of 100, which is a new roadway, this section of 1st South scored 14. The road was seal coated a few years ago to hide underlying defects, but the problems are still there. Before the seal coating was done, the road was rated 3 out of 100. The road section was last reconstructed in 1977. The road has been in failing condition since 2006.

Councilor Larry Mack asked if this road was designated as a truck route. The road is heavily used by trucks.

Stadheim said the road is not technically designed as a truck route. During reconstruction, it would likely be rebuilt to four inches.

Council President Andrea Boettger did not want to second-guess the Street Department. She said if they are rating it as a failing road it will likely need reconstruction.

Council David Christian said he saw semis use this road segment every day, but also acknowledge that when looking at the segment he saw no issues. Christian agreed other roads nearby roads were in worse shape.

Councilor Eric Warmka said even though the road looked okay now, it could start failing within the next year and the council would likely have to order repairs at a higher rate as construction costs increased. He understood that aesthetically the road looked and felt solid, but trusted the Street Departments’ estimate that it could fail soon.

Boettger said whether it was this year or next, the road need to be reconstructed soon and agreed costs were only going to increase.

Christian said that even if voted down this year, Street Department would likely be put on top of the list next year and with a larger assessment.

Stadheim said rating streets was not a perfect science and much of it came down to personal judgment, but felt the historical data backed up the recommendation to repair.

Mack made the motion to close the hearing and order the reconstruction projects, with a second by Warmka.

In order to approve this resolution, 4 out of 5 councilors needed to vote in favor. Councilor Les Schultz was absent from the meeting, meaning if one councilor voted no, the project could not be ordered in.

Christian said if he voted no, it would only delay the vote two weeks until Schultz returned. He was confident Schultz would vote in favor of repairs. He chose to vote to move forward with the project rather than prolong the decision.

All four councilors present voted to approve the reconstruction projects.