Jasper County and Mingo share responsibility on East Street bridge replacement

Jasper County will be sharing costs with City of Mingo to replace a bridge along East Street. The board of supervisors on Feb. 18 approved a 28E agreement between the county and the small town of about 300 people, and the contract specifically details the division of costs and responsibilities for this project.

The bridge, classified as Bridge F04, is over a small stream on North East Street, whose right-of-way jurisdiction is shared between Mingo and Jasper County.

County Engineer Michael Frietsch said the agreement clearly states that the county will own the new bridge — just as it owns the current bridge — and that secondary roads will take care of the necessary maintenance and inspections of the new bridge. The City Highway Bridge Program will reimburse the project.

“We are also going to go ahead and reimburse Mingo for their work for acquiring the right-of-way on their side,” Frietsch said. “We’re going to agree to them $5,000 maximum as compensation back to them for their right-of-way they got on the west side of the bridge. Essentially that’s what this is doing.”

East Street is a county road for about 0.3 miles from Iowa Highway 117 North. Frietsch noted the westernmost portion of the road belongs to Mingo.

“This enables us to then be able to leverage those City Bridge (Construction) Funds that they got, and it allows us to go ahead and proceed with this project as far as the contract goes,” Frietsch said, noting another version of the contract had already been signed by the Mingo City Council prior to the board meeting.

Construction costs for the bridge are estimated at $900,000. Supervisor Brandon Talsma said the bridge project is almost two years in the making.