By Chad Koenen

Publisher

A new boiler system will soon be installed at the City Center in New York Mills.

During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the NY Mills City Council approved a low base bid of $218,275 from Essers Plumbing and Heating to replace the aging boiler system at the City Center, along with a pair of alternate bids to bring the total cost of the project to $274,294.

According to city clerk Julie Roberts, NY Mills has $208,000 left of a $350,000 equipment bond to repair the elevator and boiler at the City Center. The remaining balance of the boiler system project will be taken out of reserves and in the form of a loan from the natural gas fund that can be paid back over time to avoid seeking another bond to complete the project. Roberts said a similar arrangement was made with the natural gas fund in the past as well. 

The alternative bids will include an air handler for the west end of the building and  an additional control over the air system as a whole and will allow the city to complete the entire boiler system project at one time, instead of having crews come back to the City Center building in the future. 

“That way it can just all be done in the problem areas and everything Kyle (Mattson) needs done will be done while they are here,” said Roberts.

The city council approved the low bid from Essers, including the two alternate bids, on a 3-0 vote with councilman Richard Grotheer abstaining. The council also received bids from BDT and Ellingson, but both of those bids were higher than the Essers bid.

In other news

• Heard the monthly liquor store report that showed gross sales for the month of February were up four percent as a percentage of sales. Year to date net revenues are up 7.82 percent as a percentage of sales from the prior year. The liquor store has shown a loss of $6,161.56 in the off-sale, which is approximately $600 better than last year and the on-sale net before transfers has shown a profit of $2,230.34 this year, as compared to a loss of $5,918.28 last year.

• Heard the monthly police department report that showed 112 calls for service, four citations, six parking tickets and six arrests last month. 

• Heard the monthly utilities department report, which included bench testing and calibrating gas pressure gauges and sending in others to be calibrated along with the combustible gas indicators and flame ionization unit, which is an annual requirement of PHMSA and Minnesota Office of Pipeline Safety. The department also attended an Apex Engineering meeting for home/property owners to discuss the Lead Service Line Replacement Project. Only one property owner attended, but the department has received more phone calls and setting up site inspections after they advertised the project on the city’s website and Facebook page.

• Approved a resolution of application to the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority Drinking Water Revolving Fund for the water treatment facility and well improvement project. The estimated cost of the project will be $10,150,000.

• Approved a resolution of application to the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority Drinking Water Revolving Fund for the Lead Service Line Replacement project. The city applied for $266,000 for MPFA funding for the project. 

• Approved changing the August meeting date from Tuesday, Aug. 11 to Tuesday, Aug. 18 due to the primary election.