A Completely Boring Post

Does everyone in the Fifth Ward have a flooded basement? Also the groundbreaking for the new school is scheduled for July 15th.

First off, a shout out to the District 65 Board Secretary who sent me these documents at 10:30pm last night, on a day when she probably didn’t even get paid on time. Due to me and other people working towards transparency, the Board Secretary, Adeela is probably the hardest working and most underpaid public servant in Evanston. She is, without a doubt, the best FOIA liason I’ve interacted with in my time running this blog and I’ve dealt with dozens of government agencies, public bodies, and so on.¹ She exemplifies the quality of work I think we should expect from public servants - give her a raise!

Second, she sent me a copy of the Exhibit C related to the Fifth Ward School Bids that I had FOIA’ed. Exhibit C is Engineering Report related to the soil analysis conducted by Construction & Geotechnical Material Testing, Inc and was stamped by Nicholas Wolff, P.E.

Boring logs are one of my favorite things to read - I love the idea of understanding what is going on in the world beneath your feet. One of my all-time favorite engineering reads are the boring logs that they pull in Iceland - in one case they bored right into magma - how cool is that?

Anyway, here’s the site on the school location where they took bore samples. You can read the raw boring data here. Most of the boreholes were drilled February 7-15th, 2023 but a few of them were done November 17-20th, 2023. The boreholes were drilled using a combination of CME-45C and Dietrich D-120 drill rigs.

Here’s a report on each of the boreholes I compiled from the data.

Basically, the finding is that the soil is very saturated quite deep. They estimate the long-term water table to be at approximately 8.5 feet below the current grade. There is about 1.5 feet of top soil and below that is a fully saturated silty clay. Silty clay soils can be challenging due to their poor drainage and potential for compaction. They can retain moisture well, which is beneficial in dry periods but can lead to water-logging in wet conditions.

The report recommends mitigating soil challenges at the New 5th Ward School site through comprehensive subgrade preparation, including the removal of unsuitable materials and the use of engineered fill. Additionally, ground improvement techniques such as rammed or vibro-compacted aggregate piers and drilled shaft foundations are advised.

This is different from my part of town (I live in the 3rd ward) where our soils contain a much higher percentage of sand due to the Lake, which allows for quicker drainage. I have to assume that everyone lives over there has a basement that floods all the time if not specifically waterproofed.

Fifth Ward School Timelines

While we’re on the subject, there are a couple updates with the project.

• There is a Special Board Meeting on 7/15/2023 at 2PM to approve the first set of bids for the Project.

  • Bid Package #1 – Site Clearing / Demolition / Enabling Work

  • Bid Package #2 – Deep Foundations

• The Groundbreaking for the new school will be on that same day 7/15/2023 at 4pm. I’ll probably be there for that. They will also be announcing the name at this point and I am still hoping they select the “Tom Hayden School of Borehole Science”

Unique to School Districts in Illinois is that there is a very specific process that the Board has to follow to approve bids for projects like this (105 ILCS 5/10-20.21)

All competitive bids for contracts involving an expenditure in excess of $35,000 or a lower amount as required by board policy must be sealed by the bidder and must be opened by a member or employee of the school board at a public bid opening at which the contents of the bids must be announced. Each bidder must receive at least 3 days' notice of the time and place of the bid opening. For purposes of this Section due advertisement includes, but is not limited to, at least one public notice at least 10 days before the bid date in a newspaper published in the district, or if no newspaper is published in the district, in a newspaper of general circulation in the area of the district.

I wish City Government had rules as strict as this. Bids have already been submitted (they were due last week) and it’s not yet clear how many contractors have bid for work. However, on the project addendum #2 there were at least a few contractors asking questions, so I think it’s likely they got some bids. I’ll be curious to see what the prices look like, considering that Northwestern just broke ground on the new stadium last week.²

1. The absolute worst liason award goes to the US Department of Education. I’m lucky if I can even get a FOIA filled in a year over there.

2. They had the most Northwestern thing ever: Northwestern branded shovels. 🤮