BLUE EARTH – Blue Earth City Council has approved the low bid for one of the two street projects planned for this summer.

The project is known as the 2020 Sailor Street improvement project, but also includes work in other areas of the city.

The low bid came from Dirt Merchant, Inc., of Mankato, and was a total of $2.28 million.

Their bid was $2.03 million for the work on Sailor Street, from Third to Seventh streets, as well as Fourth and Sixth streets from Grove to East streets.

They also bid on Alternate A, which is an overlay on Ramsey Street from Sixth to Seventh streets, and on Bartels Drive. That bid was $45,767.

The bid on Alternate B was $207,912. It involves reconstruction and new paving of the parking lot areas behind City Hall, the library and the American Legion.

The council voted to accept all three bids from Dirt Merchant, which together were $206,000 lower than the engineers’ estimates.

The only other bid was from Minnesota Paving & Materials of Mankato. It was $2.5 million for the base bid and the two alternate bids combined.

In other business, the council:

o Held three public hearings and then voted to approve variance requests for a townhouse on Eighth and Rice streets being built by the city’s Housing and Rehabilitation Authority, a fence in a backyard on property owned by Christian Obanion on South Galbraith Street, and splitting a lot into two parcels that are owned by Kriewell Oil Co.

o Agreed to increase the amount for installation costs of new items at Giant Park from $3,000 to up to $5,000. The items include large musical instruments, an information kiosk, a bike repair station and bicycle racks.

o Discussed the possibility of having a campground host at the city’s campground at the city-owned fairgrounds park. The duties would be to collect payments, answer questions and clean restrooms at the fairgrounds and elsewhere.

No action was taken.