Roundabouts on Highway 33 to receive makeover

Saukville trustees last week approved spending more than $12,000 to beautify plantings on the two roundabouts on Highway 33 east of I-43.

“The two roundabouts on Highway 33 are in terrible shape,” Public Works Director Ray deBruijn wrote in a memo to Village Administrator Dawn Wagner. “They are full of weeds and unchecked growth.”

DeBruijn told the Public Works Committee he’s not sure how the roundabouts fell into such bad condition, which includes being clogged with plastic bags and other wind-blown garbage.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said.

The village contracts with Fransee & Son Landscaping to maintain the sites for three months every summer with weeding, trimming and other tasks. Village workers do the same work and other general cleanup in the spring and fall.

One culprit is the cold and wet spring weather, deBruijn said.

“There was basically no spring,” he wrote to Wagner. “Last year they looked good. Winter and spring took a toll on them to the point that they were so bad that it would have taken a lot of man hours to restore them.”

A plan recommended by the committee and approved by the Village Board calls for Fransee to remove everything except the trees planted there, install stone rings around the trees, plant small shrubs and lay down dark brown wood chips between trees and shrubs.

The total cost of redoing the two roundabouts will be $12,085, according to an estimate from Fransee.

The money will come from the village’s Street Maintenance fund, which currently has a balance of about $55,000, deBruijn said.

DeBruijn said the work will be completed this year.