On Thursday, April 24, Wellington City held their council meeting. Prior to starting their regular meeting, they had a Wellington City work meeting to discuss the Sunrise Engineering project currently underway.
Mario Gonzalez with Sunrise Engineering first discussed the water projects that are close to being completed. He stated that he has spoken to VanCon, who is the contractor for the water projects, and at this time the only hold up is a permit from Union Pacific. It was discussed that everything should be complete by the end of May and starting in June, Nielson Construction will come in to get everything paved, completing the water project. The original budget was set for $6.6 million and is currently up to $7.2 million, due to some unexpected change orders.
Even with the change in budget, Gonzalez stated that they will still work on some quantity adjustments to finalize how much contingency the city has remaining. Depending on how much contingency is remaining after adjustments have been made, Wellington City can allot the remaining money to other city projects that may need to be completed.
The next topic of discussion was the sewer project also underway. Gonzalez said that Lance Excavating Inc., the contractor working on the sewer project, has run into some issues near Hillview Village Subdivision. Due to some of the ground being extremely hard, dry clay, Gonzalez informed council members that Lance Excavating had damaged their bore drill while attempting to drill through. Lance Excavating is in the process of attempting to drill through a different area where it is believed to have softer material.
The original budget for this project was initially set to be $6.5 million and the budget is currently up to $6.6 million. Gonzales said they do not expect any more change orders to come through. There will also be adjustments done on quantities to true up the contingencies remaining on this project. This would allow the city to complete a few more projects around town that weren’t part of the initial project.
Gonzalez concluded the meeting by stating overall the budget and estimated time of completion is on track.
At 6 p.m., Wellington City began their city council meeting. City clean-up and kennel licenses were a couple of the main agenda topics discussed.
Wellington City cleanup is typically put together by multiple volunteers from different churches in the area. The city cleanup will focus on cleaning up along Highway 6, painting curbs, cleaning up sidewalks, clearing low-hanging trees and clearing out weeds surrounding fire hydrants to make them easily accessible.
Wellington City Mayor Brad Timothy stated that many of these volunteers also identify individuals in town who may need some help cleaning up their yards and have helped them in the past as well. Mayor Timothy advised to the council that he would like for himself and council members to volunteer to help during the city cleanup, to which council members agreed.
Council member Larry McKinnon then discussed the need to update the current kennel license ordinance and the dog license application. Councilman McKinnon stated that he would like for all of the council members to look over the current ordinance and identify any changes they would like to see made. He said once they’ve made the necessary changes, that he would like for local law enforcement to also review the ordinance, so that they may be able to offer their insight, whereas they will be the ones enforcing the ordinance.
Councilman McKinnon stated that going forward, he would like for all of their documents, applications, etc. to be digitized. McKinnon explained that it would be nice if they could get rid of all printed copies so that when someone comes in for a specific document, the city can ensure that they are receiving the most up-to-date and accurate document. Mayor Timothy agreed that digitizing those documents will not only be beneficial for current city workers and council members, but also for those that will come after them.