The Department of Transportation wants to address “several design issues” before meeting with the South Bristol Board of Selectmen about the South Bristol swing bridge.
Otherwise, the department’s response to a letter from the Board of Selectmen contains little new information.
The selectmen wrote to DOT project manager Stephen Bodge Dec. 22 to invite Bodge to a meeting to discuss the impending replacement of the bridge and the potential taking of a Rutherford Island property by eminent domain.
Bodge, in his Jan. 11 reply, cites the confidential nature of “conversations and negotiations with private property owners regarding the acquisition of rights,” an apparent reference to the Dianne Haas property, also known as The Bridge House.
“However,” Bodge wrote, “we can say that completely acquiring a home and land is not a process that we enter into lightly and we will avoid if possible.”
“We are currently investigating all options” to address a series of design challenges, Bodge wrote in the Jan. 11 letter.
“The roadway itself is held up by a stacked stone wall that is located under the porch of the Bridge House,” Bodge wrote. He listed the need to rebuild the bridge operator’s headquarters and maintain utilities as further “complicating issues.”
“We would be pleased to attend a selectmen’s meeting as soon as these issues have been addressed from a design standpoint,” Bodge wrote. “However, we have heard from many in South Bristol that they would like to see a public meeting held in July or August and we would be willing to accommodate that request.”
Haas has said she doesn’t want the DOT to take her property, which she bought 15 years ago.
The schedule for the approximately $9.5 million project, including the replacement of the swing bridge with a bascule, or lifting, bridge, calls for construction to start in the summer of 2012.
