OSAGE BEACH – By the year’s end, the city of Osage Beach should have a much better grasp of what might be done to transform Osage Beach Parkway west of the Grand Glaize Bridge.
At Thursday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, Cory Imhoff and Christopher Kinzel of HDR, an engineering and consulting firm based in Omaha, Neb., gave a report that outlined two initial phases of the comprehensive study of the Parkway the firms been hired to conduct.
Kinzel told the board the first phases of their work, which will determine the vision and scope of the Parkway study, should be completed by the end of the year. After that, the consultants will create an action plan as the second phase of the project. That plan would lay out the steps needed to achieve the goals established by city staff, the aldermen and the residents and business owners in Osage Beach.
Following HDR’s report, the board unanimously approved a motion to confirm the company as the project’s consultant and authorized city staff to negotiate a contract for “Phase 1 services.”
That phase will begin with the collection of data such as population, employment and traffic trends in Osage Beach, as well as economic data and land that’s available for development. Once the company establishes a “baseline of where we are and how we got there,” HDR would conduct three public workshops to brainstorm and then narrow the focus of the Parkway plan, Kinzel said.
“We’re going to be doing a lot of listening,” he said. “What we’ve proposed is a process, working hand-in-hand with the community to figure out what the community actually needs and what the community actually wants. We want to craft a plan that’s unique for Osage Beach.”
Kinzel said that once the data-collection is finished, three public “workshops” would be held in the fall. The first would entail brainstorming ideas for the Parkway and the west side of Osage Beach. The second would seek to narrow the goals and begin to outline the comprehensive plan. The final workshop would be a presentation of HDR’s concept of the community’s vision.
Then it will be on to the second phase of the Parkway study.
“What we envision at the end of that Phase 2 is essentially an action plan,” he said. “We don’t have any preconceived notions of what it’s going to be, but rising out of this collaboration with you and the citizens of Osage Beach will be a plan that the community can get behind and the board can get behind. In other words, ‘here’s what the end looks like, and here are the steps to get there in some bite-sized chunks.’”
Osage Beach City Planner Cary Patterson told the board HDR has been great to work with so far.
“I will tell you that having worked with companies like this before, they have certainly been a breath of fresh air,” he said. “We will have quite a team of people to focus on the city of Osage Beach and, specifically, our west side.”
In other business Thursday, the board:
- Heard a report on the 2015 city audit, conducted by Williams-Keepers, LLC, a Columbia-based accounting firm. The auditors praised the city’s financial reporting and procedures and indicated the city likely is going to receive its 17th consecutive “excellence in financial reporting” award from the Government Finances Officers Association of the United States.
- Approved a contract for $32,183 to Capital Materials for the Fish Hatchery overlay project. The project was budgeted at $65,000.
- Approved a contract for $455,287 with Hessling Construction Inc., the sole bidder on the Osage Beach Sidewalk Improvements Phase 4. The sidewalk construction will extend from near the Arby’s restaurant on Osage Beach Parkway to just beyond Case Road. The project was budgeted at $450,000. Eighty percent of the project’s cost will be federally funded, said Public Works Director Nick Edelman.
- Approved a Mutual Aid Agreement with Lake Ozark Fire Protection District for ambulance services.
- Approved spending $27,687 for a Toro Workman utility vehicle from Professional Turf Products for the city’s parks department.
- Amended the city code to permit taxicab operators to have combined single limit coverage of $150,000 per vehicle as acceptable minimum insurance to operate in the city.
- Authorized city staff to apply for a Missouri Department of Natural Resources grant to plug a well in the City Park. The city has extended city water to the park and the well no longer is needed.
- Approved spending $16,909 with Municipal Equipment Co. for parts for the Rockway pump station.
- Approved spending up to $25,000 with Schulte Supply for water meters and parts.
- Approved spending $122,402 with Municipal Equipment Co. for Sands Lift Station pumps, panels and parts.
- Authorized the city to sell surplus property on Ebay.
