Clear Lake council approves contract to assess Sea Wall repairs

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council this week approved a $4800 contract with RDG Planning & Design of Des Moines to assess what work needs to be done on repairing the Sea Wall downtown.

A group called “Save the Sea Wall” recently voiced their concern that nothing was being done to address issues with the structure, but councilman Mike Callanan says the city has been looking at the situation for quite some time.  “I’ve been involved, and many of the men on this dais have, and many of our staff, for over a year trying to solve this problem. We’ve run into some problems along the way, including a contractor that took something on and couldn’t deliver because someone left that was doing it. On top of that, we budgeted $125,000 for this project. So right off the bat, I would like to say ‘Save the Seawall’ was never a question. It just wasn’t.”

Callanan says nobody on the City Council would have ever considered not saving the seawall.   “I guess I take a little umbrage at this whole concept that we don’t care about the Sea Wall. We do, and we’re going to do whatever it takes.”

The Sea Wall was constructed in 1936 as part of a Works Progress Administration project.