Months later, repair job still waits

An emergency repair at the Delano Regional Transfer Station is still an emergency.

The Regional Board of Mayors has been kicking around an $18,000 repair problem for far too long, Electric City Mayor Jerry Sands told the group Monday.

The repair of a curbing and structure problem at the dump site has been a subject of debate by the mayors for four months. It has gone out to bid on two occasions, with Young’s Welding being the lone bidder.

Decisions made by the mayors have to be approved by the councils of the four towns, and that’s where it has been messy.

Some towns fail to get it on their council meeting agendas, and it has to float around until they have another meeting. Two towns, Electric City and Elmer City, meet only once a month. And the current bylaws of the RBOM require that there be 100 percent approval before things can move on.

Sands said that it should only require three of the four council’s approval. But Coulee Dam Clerk Carol Visker, who had a copy of the original agreement between the municipalities, stated that it required four approvals.

Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee have approved the repair contract. The other two, Electric City and Elmer City meet this week.

Elmer City Mayor Mary Jo Carey objected to the repair project, saying that the transfer station was engineered wrong and that the repair wouldn’t have been necessary if the engineers had done a good job.

Gray & Osborne is the Regional Board of Mayors’ engineering firm.

Gumm and Sands explained that most of the damage over the four years the transfer station has been open has been done by the operators themselves. It was explained that the backhoe has to be used to even out the load in the trailer and when it is used it, over time, has caused the damage.

Carey, who chairs the group, had two of her council members present -- Don Bonertz and Larry Holford -- who also took issue with the engineering of the project.

Carey said that she had the right to object to things, but it didn’t necessarily mean that she wouldn’t vote to proceed with the repair.

The repair project depends on how the two councils vote this week.