Grant City, Rural Water Hold Meeting to Hash Out Contract

Grant City officials and the Worth County Rural Water District held a joint meeting last Wednesday to hash out the contract between the two entities that the USDA says that Grant City must renegotiate if they are to get approval for the loan to rebuild the 11 mile water line from Middlefork Water Company to Grant City. Parnell has already signed a similar contract with Grant City.

Before the meeting, Rural Water District people wondered why Grant City needed a new contract. In their view, the original contract stated that it would last 35 years from the date of the first bill, which was 1981. Therefore, the contract, in their view, does not expire until 2016. The USDA approved the original contract.

Councilman Bruce Downing opened the meeting by saying that the purpose was to ease concerns that they had regarding the renegotiation. Mayor Debbie Roach said that the proposed contract that they sent the Rural Water District was just a starting point and that if the USDA was OK with the Rural Water District signing an "intent to buy," then it was OK with the city. The city is seeking to take out a 30 year loan with USDA.

Steve Combs of the Rural Water District said that the Rural Water District continued to object to the penalty for connecting and disconnecting, saying that they were set up so that they could have backup in case Grant City's water went bad and that the only reason that they would disconnect was in order to prevent Grant City from having to issue boil orders. The alternative, as Peggy Drake put it, was brown water in the system that would take months to clean out and 500 calls from angry customers complaining about water quality.

Downing said that he realized that there had been hard feelings between the two parties in the past, but that "all we're after is good quality water now and in the future." He said that in the last few months, Middlefork was being operated much better than it had been. The city had in the past expressed problems with the water quality. He said that one possibility was having the city putting in some kind of waiver provision in the contract.

One part of the contract that was looked on favorably was the increase in the maximum water usage; the district has been adding customers; Ed Ackley reported that they have added five customers in the last few days and were looking to add another one.

The District took no action on the proposed contract. They will have Attorney Jerry Drake look at the contract and draw up a new one to return to the city.

Ackley ordered supplies for new connections for customers.

The board voted to increase new connection fees from $750 to $1000, saying they were losing money every time they signed up a new customer. The board increased the reconnect fee to $100. These changes are effective July 1st.

Secretary Peggy Drake reported that the power had been out one day and that a connector had burned out; the lights had been flickering on and off for the last few weeks.