“The truth is these things are expensive,” said Circle Pines Mayor Dave Bartholomay.
Because of this, a dozen cities in Anoka and Hennepin County – including Circle Pines and Ham Lake – have formed a co-op to cut down on road maintenance costs.
“When we group together we get better pricing,” Bartholomay said. “They can say listen, ‘if you’re going to have a bunch of streets in cities all around the area, we’ll give you a little better price,’ then that’s what we do and that’s not uncommon for the city of Circle Pines and for a lot of other cities.”
This co-op has been around for a couple decades. In Circle Pines the street projects can range from fog spray to seal coating to mill overlay to striping.
“You gotta do this maintenance,” Bartholomay said. “If you don’t do it then stuff starts to slide and it costs you a lot more to fix it later.”
Significant savings
Circle Pines has benefited from being part of this group. The city can’t pinpoint exactly how much money has been saved, but it’s a significant amount.
“I don’t know if it’s 10 percent, 20 percent, but I can tell you it started in 2004 so it’s 20 years old, all the different things we’ve used in this package, in this collaboration,” Bartholomay said. “We’ve saved tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Savings like that are a boost to a city like Circle Pines
“There’s all kinds of ways that we collaborate, partner together in order to save some money,” Bartholomay said. “Sometimes you get better service. This street collaboration is a perfect example. Doesn’t cost us anything but when we’re going to do some work like this summer, we have then a better bid, a better price.”
Bartholomay is glad his town is part of this cluster of cities and endorses the collaboration.
“I would encourage cities all across the metro area, or the state, to look to see if you can’t work with some of your neighbors to do some of these projects,” Bartholomay said. “Save money. Get more done. Maintain your infrastructure.”
The co-op consists of eight cities in Anoka County and four in Hennepin County.
