Wright City Public Works spent some time at their July 11 meeting getting a head start on preparations for winter as they approved line item budget changes to allow for the construction of a temporary rock salt storage facility on the City Hall property. 

The city will be selling the property that previously held the rock salt storage to help cover the cost of construction for the new storage facility. 

Kyle Roettger, with Wright City Public Works, said the temporary storage would be located in the City Hall parking lot although it would be constructed to take up as few parking spots as possible. 

“The proposed bin will be 30 foot by 40 foot, constructed out of precast concrete blocks and covered with a 50 foot by 50 foot treated canvas tarp,” Roettger said. 

The change also called for a line item budget change to allow public works to purchase all of their rock salt for the winter season to be stored in the new container. 

“Public works would also recommend we add additional funds for the rock salt line item to the budget to purchase all the salt for the upcoming winter,” Roettger said. “We would like to purchase 100 tons of salt to have in reserve which is pretty consistent with what we use during a typical winter.” 

Aldermen questioned how the facility would be used and whether there would be any additional security measures to monitor the salt and prevent it from being stolen. 

Roettger said they planned to construct a roughly 15 foot opening on one side of the container that could be filled with concrete blocks and opened when the city needed to access the salt reserves for the roads. 

He also felt that additional security would be unnecessary since the container would be under camera surveillance from City Hall and they were specifically purchasing a tarp significantly larger than the planned container to ensure it covered the entire upper opening and had enough excess material to be tied down. 

“When we fill up with salt, we’re going to make sure that’s lower than the block level so that we can just pull the tarp tight,” Roettger said. “So that’ll run off the sides and then we’ll be able to cover the front with it as well because it’s larger than the actual structure.”

He also said that while it would not be easy, the structure was designed in such a fashion that it could be moved if necessary. 

Following some additional questioning from board members when the actual ordinance came up for discussion the line item changes were passed and the purchase of materials and construction of the structure were approved along with the purchase of 100 tons of salt. 

In total the project will cost just over $18,000 covered by the expansion of the rock salt line item and the sale of the property where the storage was previously located. 

$6,850 is being spent on the materials and construction of the structure while $11,582 is being spent on the purchase of the rock salt.