Sewer closing nearing

A closing date for the Jay County Regional Sewer District’s financial package is finally set and the board is scrambling to make a few last-minute arrangements.
“We’ve got a date,” said board president Gerald Kirby. “It will be on Wednesday (June 22).”
“I’m going with 9 a.m.,” said Wayne Bailey of Commonwealth Engineers.
That closing will take place in the auditorium at the Jay County Courthouse and is open to the public.
The funding package was announced by the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development office on Earth Day, April 24, 2010. The district bid and issued letters of intent to three contractors for its three projects in September, expecting to have construction underway in December.
Then the delays set in and it’s taken until now to wrap up loose ends.
“There has just been one (delay) after another,” Kirby said, adding he is pleased the closing is near. “We’ve had some slow-ups. We’ve got our closing set and we’re ready to go.”
The district will install new sewer service in three places — southwest of Portland in the Foxfire Drive and Ind. 67 area, north of Dunkirk along county road 1150 West, and south of Dunkirk in the Willow Drive and Arlington Avenue area.
Bailey explained there are a few final pieces for the closing that the board will need to get in line.
District members will need to ensure that its billing clerk is bonded for $30,000; have liability and worker’s compensation insurance set up to cover those working on district lines after completion; inform Rural Development of what billing system the district will be using; and provide an official count of how many users will be on district lines.
Bailey also told the board to collect pending bills and forward those to financial consultant H.J. Umbaugh and Associates, which will be able to ready them for payment on the closing day.
Immediately following the closing, the board is scheduled to meet with the three selected contractors, Tumbusch Construction, St. Henry, Ohio, CSU Inc., Plainfield, and Watson Excavating, Redkey.
The board hopes to finalize contracts and get the projects moving as quickly as possible.
Bailey said Commonwealth’s Ben Adams has been in “continual contact” with the contractors and that those companies will honor the original bid prices despite those bids being nine months old.
Kirby noted that Watson Excavating has already marked sites in the Willow Drive area, estimating that the company could break ground “first thing in the morning” on Thursday if allowed.
Before any construction moves along, however, the board will need to hire site inspectors. Bailey said he will set up meetings with two potential inspectors, possibly as soon as the closing date, to try to hurry along installation.[[In-content Ad]]