By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson City Council came to a consensus on a water tower design Tuesday, but now there is further discussion on how lighting the tower would work. Council member Sara Bagwell wants to see the lights add to the structure if they're going to be put in.
"If we just have white lights, then yeah, it's kind of pointless to light it up, we can't even see Hutchinson," Bagwell said. "If we have the colored lights, it brings sort of that art into it, where you can celebrate those different holidays."
The original proposal was to light up the legs and the bottom of the tower, but there isn't enough land there to put the lights at an angle where it would also light up the word from the bottom. Mayor Jade Piros de Carvalho is open to the idea.
"What I like about the signage up at 30th on the entryway sign at 30th and K-61 is that Hutchinson is lit up," the mayor said. "Then, around the holidays we do make it green and red and I think that's kind of cool. I wouldn't be opposed to having colored lights here."
The reason that Hutchinson won't be lit is that it is a liability issue to put lights up on the tower itself. City staff is going to get further information, though it looks like the timeline for the whole project may be pushed back a bit, according to Director of Public Works Brian Clennan.
"Operations staff said they were a little concerned about losing tower 1, a million gallons, during the summer," Clennan said. "We're going to do some testing and shut tower 1 off and work with the golf course. They're our biggest user down in the south end of town and see how our system and the pressures in our system perform."
Depending on how the test goes, the bid to paint could go out later, as it is a bid to paint both the inside and the outside of the structure.