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Clintonville council recognizes Rath

Sewer plant bids come in over budget

By Bert Lehman


The accomplishments of former Clintonville Alderman Phil Rath were recognized by the city council at its meeting, Tuesday, Jan. 12.

The council unanimously approved a resolution acknowledging Rath’s public service during four terms as a city alderman. Rath passed away on Nov. 30, 2015.

Alderman Brad Rokus read the resolution to the council prior to the vote.

The resolution concluded, “Be it further resolved that the city of Clintonville desire to recognize and celebrate the public and civic service that Phil Rath contributed to the United States of America and the city of Clintonville. And also recognize the support and the commitment of the Rath family which was also vitally important to Phil to be able to participate and show leadership in the community and civic affairs as he has proved to the citizens of Clintonville over the past 27 years.”

Members of the Rath family were on hand to receive a copy of the resolution.

Sewer plant financing
City Administrator Chuck Kell told the council that the interim financing for the wastewater treatment facility improvements is in place.

He added that he is still working on a few details with the USDA.

“Right now based on the estimates the project is sitting at about $10.1 million, so we’re a hair over budget,” Kell said.

He said he hoped the bids will come in less than the estimates.

“Hopefully this will be a very competitive project and the bids will come in lower than this, and we’ll hopefully be able to do all this work,” Kell said. “If that doesn’t happen, if it trends higher, then some of the lift station options may have to be dropped from the project. That will be up to the wastewater staff to decide where the priorities are.”

Storm water study
Kell told the council he and Clintonville Public Works Director Toby Kersten recently met with Robert E. Lee engineers, who the city hired to work on the storm water issue in the industrial park, to discuss available options.

“They have the watershed basically studied and all the calculations done on the storm water flows that are coming out of the industrial park watershed,” Kell said.

He added that indications are that it will be “fairly simple” to correct the problem. Right now there is a 36-inch storm sewer pipe on Spring Street, but indications are that if that was upgraded to a 48-inch or 54-inch sewer pipe it would solve the problem.

The next step is to meet with the industries in that vicinity of the industrial park, Kell said.

He said once the city receives input from the industries, the correct answer to solve the problem will probably become clearer.

The city will research if there are any available grants for the project, Kell said.

As of the council meeting, Kell said he didn’t have the cost estimates for the project.

Residential proposal
Kell updated the council about a proposed residential development in the city.

“It’s moving slower than I had hoped,” he said.

The problem that arose was it became too late in the fall for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to do a wetland evaluation.

“They’ve mapped the wetlands, but they weren’t able to do the plant identification that’s required. That’s going to have to wait until spring when the snow is gone and the vegetation is visible and growing,” Kell said.

Because of this, the developers haven’t done much engineering work on the project.

Kell added that he did find out that extending sewer and water lines across the wetland area and streambed won’t be an issue.

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