OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The money supply from a local benefactor has dried up after nearly 20 years of ensuring the polish was maintained on an elaborately landscaped airport access roadway ushering visitors into downtown Omaha.
The Peter Kiewit Foundation gave the city $5 million in 1999 to revamp Abbott Drive, which included the addition of the so-called String of Pearls - globed lights that line a stretch of the thoroughfare. The foundation has been underwriting the maintenance since.
Foundation executive director Jeff Kutash said the foundation isn’t set up to fund things for perpetuity.
“We love that project,” he told the Omaha World-Herald . But “given that it’s public space and that Parks and Recreation has done such a great job (with it), it made sense for the city to take on ownership of maintaining it.”
The city typically picks the lowest and best bid when selecting contractors and vendors. But in the Abbott case, a proposed vendor maintenance agreement scheduled for a City Council vote Tuesday will automatically go to Lanoha Nurseries, the original landscaper.
The head of the City Parks Department said there was no reason to change the longtime arrangement. Last year, for example, a foundation grant paid for Lanoha to plant new trees on Abbott traffic islands to replace ash trees under threat from an invasive insect, the emerald ash borer.
“We feel that this has been a great partnership with Lanoha and Kiewit, and we want to continue to keep it at that level,” said parks director Brook Bench.
The pending agreement calls for paying Lanoha more than $83,000 annually for maintenance, plus a $10,000 allowance to replace trees, shrubs or sod. The maintenance work includes controlling weeds and pests, mowing, edging, picking up trash weekly and power washing the String of Pearls poles.
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Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com
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