The second phase of improvements along First Street in Escalon won’t start until school lets out for the summer.

But Escalon City Council members awarded the contract for the work at their Monday night council meeting, giving the nod to Ross F. Carroll, Inc. of Oakdale for a $383,803 bid. Next lowest bidder was George Reed, coming in at $396,165.

Both companies have been utilized by Escalon in the past on a variety of projects.

“The project area is from the west of Sanchez to the west side of Oklahoma,” City Manager Tammy Alcantor explained. “It includes removal of the existing pavement, installation of new curb and gutter, sidewalk repair, adding concrete ramps, striping, and then the new asphalt installation.”

City officials said the work won’t start while the school year is in session, as the First Street improvement project will impact traffic and they want to avoid issues with traffic in and around El Portal Middle School. Once school is out, the work can start and the hope is to have the project completed prior to classes resuming in August.

In other business at the Monday night session, council members also had the second reading of and approved a sewer ordinance update.

“Basically it’s updating some language to be compliant with state regulations and the EPA, it hadn’t been done for a while so we cleaned it up,” Alcantor said of the language and some specifics of the ordinance.

The update also includes some requirements for the ‘FOG’ – Fats, Oils and Grease – program, wherein businesses that send those products through the system must have interceptors in place to limit the amount of product going down the drain.

“Many of the businesses already have them in place,” Alcantor said of the interceptors; the update outlines the specific requirements those businesses must meet.

Council member comments touched on the Monday robbery, with an update given by police, and Alcantor said the council also directed her to set another public forum for discussion of the draft concept master plan for the Hogan-Ennis Park expansion.

“For the park design, the architects are coming back with another draft, so we will set the public meeting once I check with the architects and see what their availability is,” noted Alcantor.

The session, she said, can hopefully be scheduled in early May.