Watervliet City Commission formally names March “Restaurant Month”; progress in infrastructure impro

The Watervliet City Commission met for their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, March, 2, 2021. The meeting was held as a teleconference and was led by Mayor Deah Muth. The commission discussed and acted upon a long list of city improvements.

City Wide Asset Management Program

Sam Leatch and Andrew Rudd of Wightman+ attended the meeting to discuss the city’s City Wide Asset Management Program pertaining to Watervliet’s infrastructure improvements. Much of what was discussed included the efforts regarding the city’s water system improvements. Combined, all the asset improvements are estimated to cost $8,520,800.

City manager Tyler Dotson noted that as more information and research is obtained with water and plumbing inspections, the estimate is subject to change and will be detailed at future meetings.

As for next steps, Andrew Rudd discussed that they will need to finalize stormwater system scope, begin environmental assessment, and submit a draft preliminary engineering report.

Restaurant Month

At the Tuesday meeting, The Watervliet City Commission officially approved the naming of March 2021 as “Restaurant Month” to honor the local restaurants of the area.

“We want them to know that we are supportive and consider them a valuable entity in our community,” said Tyler Dotson.

The commission voted unanimously in support of restaurants for Restaurant Month.

Master Meter

Michael Martin and Mike Philips with Master Meter returned to this month’s meeting to discuss the replacement of the city’s water meters. The replacement meters will be used via the internet for monitoring rates and usage.

The time frame for the meters was estimated to be 6-8 weeks to get the FCC licensing and products to the city and then a few weeks for the installation of the new meters and finalization of the process. Together, the entire process was said to take somewhere between 11-14 weeks.

As this was a discussion point for the meeting, Tyler Dotson will formally present a motion for this situation for voting at the commission’s April meeting.

South Watervliet Drain Project

At their meeting, the commissioners approved the payment of $43,336.77 for the South Watervliet Drain Project. They had already approved this total at their February meeting, however this month’s approval came with more details as to where funding will come from.

Plumbing Inspections Amendment

Phase One of the city’s plumbing inspections was completed, and phase two has begun. Phase Two initially consisted of properties north of the river and west of M-140.

The city so far has seen 103 successful inspections for Phase Two, and will be adding more inspections to the phase. At their meeting, the commissioners approved the addition of more inspections to Phase Two. The proceeding inspections will include properties east of M-140, and there will be a goal to collect more data regarding pipes and other plumbing related information. The additional inspections will provide a larger sample size to then create a finer scope of the full water improvement projects for the area. The commission unanimously supported going forth with the new inspections in Phase Two with the cost of $63,592.

From “Bark” Street to Hays “Bark”

As discussed at prior meetings, the city commission has been looking to build a dog park. It was initially set to be placed at the recently abandoned portion of Park Street. However, the park area has been moved to the northeast part of Hays Park.

Mayor Deah Muth stated there would be insufficient space at the original Park Street location. Because the dog park is still early in its planning process, the project would most likely materialize closer to Spring 2022. The commission fully supported the price of $2,750 to further prepare application materials and have a design for the park created.

Board of Review

The city commission approved the appointment of Diane Burford to the Watervliet Board of Review.

Change in the B1 District

The location of 320 N. Main Street is set to be an auto accessory store. Traditionally, auto accessory stores are not allowed in the B1 District in Watervliet. However, after appropriate applications and processes, the amending of the zoning ordinance for allowable businesses was adjusted.

The proposal will allow for a special land use permit, allowing the auto accessory store to be placed at 320 N. Main Street. The location had been previously used for storage.

The commission’s discussion only served as a first reading for the issue, thus a motion to formally accept the change will be made at the commission’s regular April meeting.

Elm Street Improvement Project

Watervliet was one of 28 cities to receive $117,000, which was decided to go toward their Elm Street Improvement Project. After progress was made on the scope of the project, the estimated cost rose to $575,000. Since then, the city received several bids for the Elm Street Project, and as a pleasant surprise, received a bid of $488,156, which was very close to the city’s original cost for the project. The commission gladly approved this cost of the project.

Finances

The city commission approved invoices and expenditures for the month of February for accounts payable at $75,707.62 and payroll related spending at $58,026.60 for a total expenditures of $133,734.22 for the city.

Special meeting

There will be a special city meeting on March 23, 2021.