City seeks grant funds for sewer plant upgrade

The city of Medford is seeking grant funds to help with the cost of additional sewer plant upgrades.

At Monday evening’s meeting of the Medford City Council, council members approved authorizing the city to submit a community development block grant (CDBG) seeking up to $1 million in public facilities funding to help with a project to upgrade the aeration system at the wastewater treatment plant.

The city had previously hired an engineer to look at options for the aeration system. The total project cost is projected to be about $1.7 million.

The grant the city is seeking is a one-third/two-thirds split with the maximum grant award of $1 million. If successful, the city’s matching share of the project will be about $700,000.

While the grant request authorization and related actions were ultimately approved unanimously, there were questions about the project and what the city was committing to do.

“Could someone explain what we are doing?” asked alderman Mike Bub. He noted that typically things go through the committee of the whole process where it is presented at one meeting and there is an opportunity for council members to review the information and think about it before making a final decision at council. In this case, the authorizations giving permission to apply for the grants and related resolutions were brought directly to council.

“This is $700,000 we are approving potentially and this is the first time we are seeing it,” Bub said.

“This is just the application,” responded mayor Mike Wellner. Any actual spending will occur after the city receives any grant award.

“You wouldn’t apply for it if you weren’t going to do it,” Bub said.

City coordinator Joe Harris said if they didn’t plan on doing the work they wouldn’t have approved hiring an engineer for the project. He said that regardless of if the city receives the grant, they will need to do something with it by 2024. Harris said he is optimistic about the grants noting there are a lot of communities that got halfway through the process and then dropped out. He said at those times the money goes back into the pool and the next project would get the funds.

In related action, aldermen approved a resolution to formally create a citizen participation plan and then action to approve a draft plan, both of which are grant requirements ensuring public input in the grant process.

Perkins Street project

The city of Medford’s summer street project will be the reconstruction of Perkins Street from the intersection with 4th Street to the Black River bridge, a distance of just under 2,500 feet in length. The project is a complete road rebuild including replacement of the sewer and water mains, curb and gutter, driveway aprons, laterals, and road surface.

Action at Monday’s meeting was the preliminary notice to impose special assessments. The city assesses property owners abutting each side of the street for a portion of the cost of the project.

Depending on the amount of the assessment, property owners can take up to 10 years to pay it off through an addition to their property taxes each year.

Property owner Mauro Lopez of 129 E. Perkins Street questioned the notice for the public hearing he received and when the payment would be due. Harris explained that the action at that meeting was just an estimate and that it would be next year before they would have an exact amount about the cost. Even then, Harris said, the first payment would not be due until tax bills were sent out the following December.

Harris told council members that the estimates should be a lot closer to the actual amounts than in the past since the city makes the estimates based on the actual bid amounts. In the past, he said the estimates were always much higher which he said would scare a lot of people. “We try to get them closer than in the past,” Harris said.

In other business, council members:

_ Received an update on a power outage that occurred Saturday in the downtown. A squirrel bit into the line on a pole behind the former Armbrust Meats building on Main Street and shorted out a transformer on the pole. Crews were able to restore power within a few hours.

_ Approved allowing the farmers market group to continue using the Whelen Avenue parking lot area for the weekly farmers market.

_ Approved adding Jim and Gwen Willkomen to an existing easement between Todd and Colleen Waldhart and Charles and Linda Gelhaus, and the City of Medford to access the building lots east of the intersection of Impala Dr and Malibu Dr.

_ Received word that the city wastewater treatment plant was beginning to accept trucked in waste from Kerry Ingredients in addition to receiving waste from Park Falls paper mill, Land O Lakes and others. This brings additional revenue to the city’s utility while keeping flows level during non-peak times.