Chelan County Commissioners Postpone Awarding West Cashmere Bridge Bid

The Chelan County Commissioners postponed the awarding of the contract for the West Cashmere Bridge replacement one week to make sure they worked with the DOT and the bidders on a variety of different information needed before work could start.

Bob Bugert says once work is underway, they will be notifying the public of any traffic impacts.

"There certainly will be some lane closures that will occur. The best estimate is that the entire construction process will take about 460 days from start to finish. We're hoping to start this April or May."

County Public Works Director Eric Pierson says they hope to award the bid during the next Commissioner meetings during the week of February 24th.

The Commissioners have also hired Burke Consulting to help develop the new short-term rental code for the county in response to the growing industry, particularly in tourist-heavy locations near Leavenworth and Chelan.

Doug England says they gave Burke some rough guidelines.

"They will come back to us with some indications of how we can work through issues involving both legally what the county can do to look at what some of the other counties, not just in Washington, have done and also look at some of the issues in urban growth areas we'll be addressing."

Commissioner England says they hope to move fast with the update.

Hear the full conversation (which took place prior to the Bridge bid delay) below: