The council met Monday, Jan. 19 at 7:00 p.m. in city hall. Among items on the night’s agenda was a water related quote received from Kurita in the amount of $14,582 for expedited service of the Clean In Place (CIP) process and reverse osmosis skids at the water plant, the payment approved as recommended.
The council discussed the matter prior to council in the committee of the whole.
“We wouldn’t be able to schedule them until Feb.16 otherwise. It wouldn’t be good to wait until Feb. 16 with the amount of issues that we’ve corrected at the water plant,” said Stanley Public Works Operator In Charge Joe Schmitt. He added, “It’s just to get them here this week.”
Meyer asked what the consequences would be in delaying this. Schmitt told him that it would be replacement of the membranes to the RO in a price range of $100,000.
“Unfortunately, it’s something that we need to get done,” said Alderperson Jason Meyer.
At the following Council meeting, Meyer asked, “It’s my understanding that this needs to be done soon or we risk damaging expensive equipment, if that’s not correct, please speak up now.”
“Yeah, if they haven’t been done for a year, they’re lucky to be running right now,” Don Goettl spoke up.
“So, we’re in a situation where we need to have it done as soon as possible,” said Meyer.
Goettl mentioned the last time he came in to help was last January or February.
“Should’ve been done at least three or four times since then,” said Goettl.
The Council approved the item as number 18 on the Council agenda.
Also from Monday council, members approved payment to Market and Johnson of $158,934.35 as recommended by CBS Squared.
Meyer asked if any of the funds would go towards the pond that was built that couldn’t be used. Pilgrim said she didn’t think so.
“I don’t know if anybody is aware that this pond that was built for the backwash water,” Meyer said. “In order to not have to send it to the wastewater plant and have the issues there, the pond was designed and constructed so that that water can go into the sediment pond instead.” He shared that they were informed that based on the composition of that water the DNR is not going to allow it to go into that pond. “So now we’ve spent money on a pond that we can’t use for the purpose for which we built it.”
“Jon (Strand) should have known that back when we built the northwest plant,” stated Don Goettl.
“Why it wasn’t assured that the pond would be useful for the type of water we would be discharging into it. That’s the question that I’m demanding an answer for,” Meyer said.
“The other question is why it was dug before we had final approval,” added Nicole Pilgrim. “The pond was never finally approved. There’s no point in digging if we can’t discharge.”
“In the future I’m not going to vote for any money to be paid to CBS Squared until this is resolved. I did not personally vote to build a pond that we can’t use,“ Meyer said. “We relied on CBS Squared to have the technical knowledge to do the engineering for us.”
Schmitt mentioned that he specifically asked those questions at a recent meeting with CBS2. “I asked why that pond was dug before because there were five permits needed for that pond. We only had four. Jon Strand knew that we didn’t have that other one yet and due to a lack of communication on CBS2 being the engineer for the job, I asked I said who is covering that now because due to your failure of communication with your subcontractors now the city just paid to have Haas dig a pond. Now the failure of all this come back through. Now the city has to pay again to fill a pond that should never have been dug to begin with. So that’s money that the city should not be paying for. That is money that CBS should be covering. Because they’re not doing their job it’s costing the city money. I asked Jon Strand that specifically and he did not have an answer nor did he like being asked that question. But it is what it is. The truth sucks,” said Schmitt.
Henke confirmed that for this they are paying Market & Johnson for the work that they completed.
The Council approved paying $158,934.35 to Market & Johnson for pay application #1.