Mayor Frey’s administration has decided they will no longer bring new street layouts to the city council for approval. The street reconstruction process has always required council approval of new layouts, even after the city’s change to a strong mayor form of government in 2021.
City staff have been told that council layout approval has never been mandatory, it’s just been done as a courtesy. The 1st Avenue N reconstruction was one of the first projects to bypass council approval and go straight to final engineering.
There’s a fear that this new approach could open the door to late-stage layout changes after a project reaches 60%-90% engineering. This could lead to increased change orders for consultants and contractors who have to deal with rushed or half-baked plans. There’s also internal concern that the city council may protest being cut out of the process by voting to deny assessments or construction bid awards, which happen at the end of final engineering…