The Patten Street Rebuild is moving forward.
Awarded at the Monday, March 9 village board meeting, the $2,478,033 road project will go to a company known as Skid Steer Guy of Mondovi.
The village board also approved an amendment to the Ayres Administration Agreement, dated February 4, 2026 and adding services include an onsite person from Ayres to free up village public works from site monitoring on Patten Street, as well as adding Ayres Associates representative Lisa Fleming to keep track of grant administration on the project. Total compensation with the amendment for additional services is estimated at $447,000, up from $282,000 previously.
The Patten Street Rebuild is being funded with a Community Development Block Grant ($1,00,000), DNR Safe Drinking Water Loan Program ($783,250), and DNR Clean Water Fund ($1,258,500). The tentative project start date is April 1, following a pre-construction meeting planned for March.
The pre-construction meeting is a time for village staff to sit down with the engineer and contractor and discuss details.
Ayres representative Gareth Shambeau, filling in for Brian Lambert, gave the project details from March 9.
“We have six bids, which is great, “he said. “Skid Steer Guy came in low even with the alternate, clarifying the alternate as adding additional breaker on.
“Kind of going above and beyond,” he said. “The base bid design is plenty adequate for the design and based on the geotex recommendation, ultimately up to you all. But if you hit a spot where you maybe had some rougher soils, you always have the opportunity to add some of that extra breaker on back in some soft spots, if need be. So you know the recommendation either way, whether it’s base bid or base bid, plus alternate, it’s still Skid Steer Guy.”
Out of Mondovi, Shambeau said the Mondovi-based contractor was a regular in the region.
“He’s one of the regulars in the region, so no reason to be a concern. We checked into his federal status to make sure he’s not debarred, as required by the CDBG, as expected. He’s not. He met his all of his other DBE requirements for the funding and everything. So I guess maybe his first order of operations. I think what he got on the agenda is looking to award that contract.”
If voted for approval, Shambeau said the next step was to draft a contract and send it over to the low bidder.
“Our next step would be we prepare the draft contract, send it over to Skid Steer Guy,” Shambeau said. “He’s got some paperwork to put together for us. We review that all looks in order. We send it to you all get it executed and keep plugging along.”
Minor adjustments could still require change orders, while a choice of interim financing while waiting for state reimbursement could see a loan closing in early June or July.
Trustee Michael Eslinger shared some project thoughts.
“I think we could probably, my opinion, would just hold a base bid knowing that the geotech recommended the smaller amount of that correct material,” he said.
As for the other bid, it allowed for dealing with bad or really wet soils.
Shambeau elaborated.
“If you come across an area where we should have 12 inches, would make that assessment,” he said. “We’re usually talking close with the contractor, but as they’re putting the water and sewer, and if we hit a spot where there’s really bad soils, or just really wet soils, we’ll have that conversation. Usually we can get a pretty good idea as they’re as they’re relaying the road bed, getting ready for it.
Shambeau said contractors were vigilant in watching for soft spots, as it affected how much they might have to put down or take back up. The final asphalt layer will be put down next year, allowing to address any issues that arise with the freeze/thaw cycle.
“That way if there is a spot that becomes an issue over the first winter, we can have it before we’re carrying a completely new asphalt,” Shambeau said. “I know soils are questionable around here times when you get in areas, but again, we have a lot of communities that just put a little bit of granular sand underneath eight inches of base course for asphalt, and don’t mess with this bigger rock. So not saying it’s over designed. I don’t think the soil, but it’s consistent with the geotech’s recommendation based on their soil data. And then we ran a DOD sort of pavement design on from that.”
With questions satisfied, it was time to make the bid award, with motion to approve made by Trustee Michael Eslinger and seconded by Village President Bob Geist, then passing unanimously.
Resident Francis Zais asked about project details earlier during public comment.
“So what does that mean on our street?” he asked Shambeau. “I’m on Michael Street, Michael and St. John.”
“The plan is to leave a temporary drive lane for the people that live on that road to get back to there,” Shambeau said. “The specs will have language in there requiring one lane of traffic open at all times and then at the end of every day and throughout, they’re supposed to shape things back up so that everything’s passable. There might be short windows where they have a trench water main going in, where they might not be able to get through.”
Water service will be replaced from the street up the point of the new curb stop, with Shambeau saying the typical pattern was to leave sidewalks in and open until water service was getting put back in.
“What I typically see is they’ll leave the sidewalk in and open until they get to a point where they’re putting water services back in potentially,” he said.
Jackson had another question.
But what about mail? One way or the other? Everybody’s got mailboxes on both sides. What happens?”
“You’re asking all the good pre-construction conference questions,” he said. “Usually when we sit down with contractor, we have that conversation as well as what the plan is for trash and mail. Are the mailboxes in a spot that we put a temporary cluster up somewhere, working with the contractor for people to pick up their mail, or sometimes, depending on the community, they set it up to get delivered to the post office. But it’s usually a conversation with the contractor at the pre-construction meeting, which will be sometime in March.”
The meeting will be posted on the village’s website once it’s live and there were updates to provide, Shambeau said.
“And then, my understanding is, his intention is to kind of provide frequent, I don’t know about weekly, but frequent updates on, you know what happened and what’s going to be happening, kind of what to suspect. That’s what I understood.”
With details on Patten clarified, Village President Bob Geist
“Any other concerns of the public?” he asked to silence.
Village of Boyd regular board meetings are held on the second Monday of each month in the village hall. The public is invited to attend.