Fire department parking lot damaged by flood

CLINTONVILLE – The city of Clintonville will obtain bids to repair flood damage to the parking lot on the northside of the fire station.
The Clintonville Common Council approved having the city obtain bids for the parking lot repair project when it met June 9.
At the meeting, Shane Krueger, chief of the Clintonville Fire Department, told the council he had concerns about the flood damage to the parking lot on the northside of the fire station and how it was affecting the operations of the fire department.
Since the flood event in April, he said trees have been removed and large rocks have been added to the shoreline of the river behind the fire station. This was needed because the heavy rain caused a washout to the area.
“In doing that, I guess they’ve taken their steps and right now the driveway condition has been degraded by the movement of trucks and the edges close to the guardrails are still busted up,” Krueger said. “Our current response is to drive (fire) trucks out backwards to the south. So, we’re not responding to the north because our officers do not feel confident in putting a heavy firetruck on the north side of the building.”

That is slowing the fire department’s response times to emergencies, Krueger said.
He added that he received an email from Clintonville Street Superintendent Justin Jaeger which stated that roughly 450 tons of asphalt would be needed to correct the situation. The cost would be $100 per ton if Waupaca County did the work, so the total cost of the asphalt would be $45,000.
If the city would decide to have the asphalt work done to the parking lot, Krueger recommended that the asphalt directly in front of the doors to the fire station be replaced with concrete because of the weight of the firetrucks.
“The firetrucks going out on brand new blacktop at $45,000-$50,000 worth of blacktop, I feel would probably be degraded pretty rapidly,” Krueger said.
Krueger said Clintonville Public Works Director Justin Mc Auly estimated the concrete would cost $2,300 plus $1,600 in labor for a total of $3,900.
Council President Greg Rose said there is a possibility that the city could receive emergency aid funds to cover all or part of the cost, but there is no guarantee the city would receive those funds.
“To remedy the situation, we’re going to have to pay up front, and if we get some money on the backend, great,” Rose said. “We can’t know for sure though. But one thing that is for sure, is the road is degraded and we need to repair it.”