Deer Creek pushes water tower back to next year
News | Published on November 5, 2024 at 4:18pm GMT+0000 | Author: Tucker Henderson
0Project scheduled to start in spring 2025
By Chad Koenen
Publisher
The long-awaited water tower project in the City of Deer Creek has been officially pushed back to the start of 2025.
During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the Deer Creek City Council approved a change order with Onyx Blasting and Coating, LLC that will push the start of the city’s water tower project back one year. The original substantial completion date was October 7, 2024, but the company failed to complete little, if any, substantial work this year leading to last week’s vote.
According to the new timeline, the water tower work must be substantially completed by June 30, 2025.
In April the City of Deer Creek awarded a low bid of $353,050 from Onyx Blasting and Coating for this summer’s water tower rehabilitation project. The city received eight bids in all ranging from the bid from Onyx, all the way up to $852,500. The low bid was attractive to the city as it was about five percent lower than the estimated $372,300 cost from city engineers Bolton and Menk, Inc.
As part of the project the city will be rehabbing the 100,000 gallon water tower in town with a new safety climb system, new 24” pressure man-way access in the bottom of the tank, a new tank mixer, new recirculation pump, new “mud” valve at the bottom of the tank, as well as several other repairs to the water tower.
In order to make the repairs the water tower will need to be taken off line for a portion of the project and the City of Deer Creek was planning to install at 10,000 gallon pressure tank to keep water flowing in town for the entirety of the project.
In other news
• Heard that the owner of the former Deer Creek School building was inquiring about getting new service lines into the building and potential upgrades to the building like a new driveway. The city and the owners of the building will continue to look into the best way to provide additional utility services to the building if needed down the road.
• Heard from Mitch Koep about a potential solution of switching the city’s email host from Outlook and Microsoft 360 to Thunderbird. The city has had issues with receiving emails in recent months.
• Approved the liquor license for DC Express, contingent on receiving proof of insurance, and Wet Woody’s bar/restaurant.
• Approved a prepayment plan with Premier Pyrotechnics that will provide an additional 15 percent of fireworks if the city’s contract for fireworks are paid in full prior to December 1. The city council agreed to pay for the upfront cost of the fireworks for Deer Trails Day, but the cost is typically reimbursed by the Deer Creek Lions Club.
• Approved converting the city’s utility billing to the software program Redline. The current city’s utility billing software will no longer be supported in the near future, which forced Deer Creek and a number of other communities in the region, to search for a new billing software. The cost for the first year will be $1,850, but will drop to just $600 per year after the initial year.
• Heard from utility supervisor Dan Kovar who said the recent MPCA audit went well in the city. However, he said the audit found water getting into the collection system that is not suppose to be there, most likely from either from ground water getting into a broken pipe or water getting into the sewer system through a missing cover. In order to locate where the water is leaking into the system the city will enlist the help of Minnesota Rural Water to do a smoke test in the spring to see where repairs may be needed.
• Heard from city clerk Miriam DeCock who said she is in the process of trying to update the city’s website and making it a bit more user friendly and modern.
• Approved hiring Jake Seelhammer to install new adapters on 11 light poles in the downtown area that will be utilized for new Christmas lights.
• Approved paying Brenda Lee $500 for work she completed as city clerk when the city was temporarily without a city clerk in August. The council also approved paying her an additional $100 for a meeting stipend. Danny Hendershot abstained from the vote.
• Approved having DeCock take over the city’s water/sewer billing at the first of November. Lindsay George had been completing the work on a temporary basis until a new city clerk could be hired and trained.
• Heard that Santa Day will be moved to December 14 and will be held in conjunction with a crafts fair also being planned at the Deer Creek Community Center that day.