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ELO seeks less costly fix to road situation

EAST LIVERPOOL — After being turned down for more than $1.1 million in Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) funding for replacing a retaining wall on Garfield Street, city officials are looking at a less expensive remedy to the problem.

Service-Safety Director Brian Allen told city council this week he had received from engineers an alternate plan that will cost much less than replacing the wall and repairing the roadway which has also begun slipping above the wall.

That plan entails purchasing one house and three vacant lots that rest below the 250-foot concrete wall, tearing down the structure and backfilling the hillside.

According to Allen, this alternative would cost about $384,000 instead of the $1,149,641 estimated for the wall replacement project.

He has already applied for that amount from the OPWC which had notified him last week it could not fund the entire amount of the project as proposed, since that represented one third of the agency’s available funding for the year. Allen said last week the agency was not opposed to providing some funding.

After the meeting, Allen said the alternative proposal will depend not only on receiving funding from OPWC but also on whether the property owner, Linda Ziegler, is willing to sell the house — a rental property — and the vacant lots to the city.

Although he did not have immediately available an estimate of what portion of the $384,000 would be earmarked for acquisition of the property, he said Ziegler would be offered fair market value.

The same type of arrangement occurred when three structures had to be purchased last year after a portion of Lisbon Street began sliding over the hillside, when owners were paid for their houses, which were then demolished to make way for a new wall.

jgilbert@mojonews.com

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