Staff writer
Tabor College’s proposed baseball and softball indoor practice facility has created issues with waterlines that run underneath where they want to build.
“We don’t permit anything to be built over the top of a water line,” city administrator Larry Paine said, “so we are wanting to move that.”
Paine proposed to council Tuesday that they not only buy replacement water pipes early to accommodate Tabor’s building plan, but to help fix an existing water line problem on Wilson St.
According to water supervisor Morgan Marler, in the last 16 years an estimated 30 water leaks have happened on Wilson St., and that they’ve had multiple leaks prior to that since the ’80s.
“We are trying to use this opportunity with Tabor paying a portion of the costs to go ahead and do that now,” Marler said, “before we have to do that in another 10 or 15 years when the life expectancy runs out.”
According to Paine, if the city were to select a contractor at its Nov. 3 meeting, Tabor would start the process of buying pipe right after that, and the city would not be able to help with Tabor’s timeline.
“We are trying to facilitate the timing problem that Tabor has the best we can,” Paine said.
Mayor Delores Dalke agreed with the necessity of fixing the pipes before it was necessary.
“It’s probably better to do it now than to wait for the pipes to fail,” Dalke said.
Council approved the purchase to help the college and city stay on schedule for building the facility. Bids will open for the project on Oct. 29.
In other business:
- Dale Klassen was reappointed to the Fire Advisory Board for another two years, while Kevin Suderman was chosen to replace Clark Wiebe, Merle Flaming to replace Brad Dies, and David Terrell to replace Ron Matz.