In an attempt to "open the lines of communication" Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki will hold a public listening meeting Sunday at Liberty House Cafe starting at noon to speak with residents about the Manning Avenue Street Improvement project.

"The only agenda is to listen and gather information," Harycki said this morning. "The project is a major inconvenience."

Harycki said the meeting has been something he has been planning for awhile and he has received a handful of phone calls from people with concerns and issues on the project.

Their main concern, he said, is people speeding through the side streets to make up time lost because of the construction.

He described Sunday's meeting as a "proactive" way to deal with various issues before they snowball into larger problems.

Joel Lux, a senior transportation planner with Washington County, said the project has been going well, with no major issues as of yet.

"So far, so good," he said. "We are making good progress. ... Our hope is that we finish all major work this year."

He added later workers did hit a phone line and took knocked out power. Lux said it was fixed in a matter of hours.

Lux was on site this morning and said crews are currently working on the storm sewer construction between 62nd Street and County Road 12.

Construction on the project started this month and is scheduled to be complete by October.

Manning Avenue - which divides Grant from Stillwater and Stillwater Township - is being expanded from two lanes to four lanes from Highway 36 to about 1,000 feet north of Highway 12. The Stillwater side will include a curb and gutter, as well as a bicycle and pedestrian path; the Grant side will have a regular shoulder and ditch, said Cory Slagle, county transportation engineer.

About 40 trees will be planted in a new median, something area residents said would help preserve some of the area's rural character.

The project will include traffic signals at Liberty Avenue and Settlers Way, in addition to reconfiguring the signals at with Highway 36 and County Road 12.

The project will cost $6-7 million and the county has received at $4.6 million in federal funds to help pay for the work.

County officials said about 16,000 cars per day travel on the road, and they expect that figure to double in the next 20 years.

Harycki said he will be the only public offical at Sunday's meeting, which he expects will be attended by 20 people.

Despite the inconvenience it is causing Stillwater residents, Harycki praised the county's work on the road thus far.

"The county worked long and hard on the project."