A paved pathway could be built along West Roseberry Road this summer in Donnelly.
Once complete, the pathway would link neighborhoods west of Idaho 55 to a pathway on the east side of the highway that ends at Donnelly Elementary School.
Current plans call for the eight-foot-wide pathway to stretch more than a half-mile from Idaho 55 to Dawn Drive. The pathway would be on the north side of Roseberry Road and then cross to the south side of the road at Kassandra Road.
The work is funded by a $250,000 grant aimed at providing safe pathways to and from schools.
However, the project could be scaled back to account for the high bids the city recently received for the work. Those bids, which totaled about $400,000, were rejected by the Donnelly City Council.
“We don’t have the extra $150,000 to do it,” Donnelly City Clerk Lori Clemens said.
Still, Clemens is optimistic that further consultation with the bidding contractors could allow the project to move forward as planned.
The initial bidding suggests there was confusion about the design for the pathway that inflated prices, Clemens said.
The city could also scale the project back to only build the pathway from Idaho 55 as far as grant funding allows, or seek additional grant funding to complete the build to Dawn Drive.
Either way, the work must be completed within three years, or the $250,000 grant awarded to the city will expire, Clemens said.
