Cashmere City Council Meeting January 23

At the January 23, Cashmere City Council meeting, Mayor Jim Fletcher introduced Dorien McElroy, the new manager of Cashmere’s water and wastewater facilities, for contractor Woodard and Curran. She thanked everyone for the warm welcome and said that she wants to make sure they have a good close working relationship.

The majority of the meeting included discussions focused on interconnected business items related to the Sunset Highway Improvement Project.

Explanations to the Council were provided by city attorney, Chuck Zimmerman, the Mayor and Director of Operations, Steve Croci.

Following a lengthy discussion, in a 4:1 split vote, the City Council approved an Inter-local Agreement (ILA) with Chelan County for bidding and construction activities associated with the Goodwin/Sunset Highway Improvement Project. Fletcher told the Council that the agreement is basically confirming to the County that Cashmere has enough money to cover all engineering, inspection, construction costs for its portion of the project. According to city documents, the estimated total construction costs for the City's portion of the project are $1,500,000 of which $1,044,834 will come from grant funds. Chris Carlson voted against the agreement. He expressed a number of concerns with the agreement including how costing definitions seemed to be used interchangeably. He also said he would prefer to see specific City and County cost separated out. Also of concern to Carlson was the change orders process in the ILA. Croci said that expensive change orders would need to be approved by the city. Zimmerman responded that these would be handled the same way as if the city was bidding on a project. He added that Croci was very familiar with the project and working with the county; and that the relationship with the county has been great. Carlson said he was not super comfortable with the contract having 20 years of experience working on similar types of contracts. Council member Derrick Pratt said that since the contract is with the county, and knowing the players involved, made him more comfortable and secure with the agreement.

Also associated with the Sunset Highway Improvement Project the City unanimously approved purchasing land from the Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority (Port). The land will be used to collect stormwater from the improved road. A condition of the sale was to include a Perpetual Covenant Agreement, where the city also agrees to collect the stormwater from an adjacent piece of Port property into the city’s new stormwater retention pond. The adjacent Port property is scheduled to be sold, for retail development.

In a 2nd 4:1 split vote, with John Perry voting against, the Council approved the  Perpetual Covenant Agreement. Perry expressed concern that the city would be setting a precedent if the city is taking responsibility and ultimately providing a service for a private entities’ stormwater. He asked Zimmerman if, in the future, the city needed to charge for stormwater treatment. Would anything prevent to city from charging that landowner who owned the property listed in the agreement. Zimmerman replied that was a great question and that as written, the agreement would not allow the city to charge the owner of the parcel. The attorney said he could go back to the Port and ask if they would agree to including a statement that this property would not be exempt, if Cashmere ever creates a Stormwater Utility, such as the one that exists in East Wenatchee. In a follow-up message, Fletcher provided an update and said, “This issue was resolved in further negotiations with the Port, fees can be collected for stormwater utility collection.”

In a 3rd related vote, this one being unanimous, the Council authorized the mayor to sign and approve any unforeseen bid and construction agreements related to the project, with a limit that no single item is greater than $5000 or a cumulative city expensive of $15,000.

In other business a unanimous vote approved a reauthorization to RH2 Engineering to finalize the design, prepare bid documents, and provide services for bidding and construction for the city’s SCADA system with an estimated cost of $59,976.

A lighting upgrade by Schmitt Electric to the Wastewater Treatment Center was unanimously approved. The project will retrofit/replace lighting fixtures, lamps,

sensors. The cost to the city will be $16,863 with a total project cost of $115,745, the difference will be covered by a $98,882 rebate from the PUD, for reducing electricity demand. Four firms were contacted for bids and two bids were submitted. With PUD rebate the bid from Schmitt Electric, Inc was the lowest cost to the City. Fletcher said that with the rebate, upgrading the system was cheaper than just changing the light bulbs.