Cheney City Council OKs Well 3 interfund loan

Cheney’s City Council approved a resolution and an ordinance at its April 23 meeting to pay for repairs to aspects of the city’s water supply system.

The ordinance authorized an interfund loan from the Light Department and Sewer Department reserves to the Water Department to pay for the balance of work on the city’s redrilling of Well 3. The city was able to secure $750,000 in funding from the state for the project in last year’s supplemental budget, but was unsuccessful in its application for funding from the state’s Public Works Trust Fund to pay for the balance of the work, which at the time was estimated at $1.8 million.

The city also implemented a water rate increase as part of the 2018 budget to help provide some funding for water projects like well No. 3, which is located on the west side of Erie Street between Cedar and Oakland streets. In the meantime, actual work on redrilling the well —which has proven so far to be capable of producing up to 1,500 gallons a minute at a depth of 750 feet — has come in lower than the original estimate.

The interfund loan is for an amount not to exceed $900,000, and will be repaid over 10 years beginning in 2020 with an interest rate of 3.25 percent, calculated by using the state’s investment pool rate of 2.25 percent plus 1 percent. The amount will be loaned as bills come in.

“I’m only going to loan it on an as needed basis,” Finance Director Cindy Niemeier told the council.

Niemeier requested that all three readings and final passage on the ordinance be conducted at the meeting, and council agreed.

Council also approved a resolution for $66,000 in emergency repairs to the city’s water distribution system. Public Works Director Todd Ableman told the council the contract with Red Diamond was for fixing a total of eight leaks in water main piping primarily north of Elm Street. The leaks combined were allowing approximately 400 gallons per minute of water to drain into the ground since around the beginning of the year.

Councilman John Taves asked Ableman if he had an estimated value of the amount of water lost from the system on a monthly basis. Ableman said he hadn’t run such a calculation.

The other resolution on the April 23 agenda was for updating the city’s governmental charges and fees to include the addition of foreclosure fees and a foreclosure registration fee. The council adopted these fees earlier this year as part of a “Foreclosure Registration Program” requiring lenders “or other responsible party(ies) in the foreclosure process to register such properties with the City to protect the neighborhoods from the negative impact of absentee ownership including lack of adequate maintenance and security.”

The annual foreclosure registration fee is set at $400. The resolution also changed the Building Department’s permit renewal fee to 50 percent of the permit fee, minimum of $50 and maximum of $200, and established a violation investigation fee of $26.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.