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The Valley city council voted to accept a bid for the paving of 25 streets during the city council meeting on Monday night. Mayor Leonard Riley recommended introducing a new clause with an asphalt index and adjusting four roads on the list.

“Our citizens need to have good roads so they don’t tear their cars up,” Riley said. “It’s important to have citizens, and they like paved roads.”

The city of Valley received a bid from Chris Clark Grading and Paving for $2,750,138. The proposed clause will introduce an asphalt index, which would adjust the bid based on the price of asphalt. The price of asphalt goes up or down according to the state index. 

“If we did it on a fixed bid, if it’s six months from now, and the price of asphalt has gone up, the contractor’s required to pay with that bid,” Riley said. “If it goes down, then we lose money.” 

With the asphalt index in place, as asphalt prices go up or down, the bid will adjust proportionally. Riley recommended the bid due to the current rising asphalt prices. 

“The price of asphalt is going up, up, up,” Riley said during the council meeting. “It’s fair to the contractor, and it’s fair to us.”

Riley also asked one council member to reduce 30th Street and 34th Street. Each council member will have up to $600,000 to use on roads in their district. The two roads cost a total of $875,005.91.

“Each council member has $600,000 in their district paid, and that total came to $875,005.91,” Riley said. “So I just asked him to reduce his streets.”

Fifty-sixth Street and 27th Avenue, which have already been paved, were removed from the list as well.

According to Riley, the contractor will decide the order in which the roads will be paved. He said that the contractor will have one year to complete the list of roads. The city of Valley has been repaving roads every year for the past several years, and the mayor has high hopes for continuing to do so.

“Most of our roads were built and paved back in the 30s and 40s,” Riley said. “And we’ve been doing a lot of paving the last four or five years and we’re gonna continue to do a lot.”