NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
RENO COUNTY — The Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday decided to complete the purchase of land for the waste lagoons to serve the Yoder and HABIT sewer districts at a cost of $350,000.
According to Reno County Administrator Randy Partington, the commission will be presented with two resolutions at the next meeting to issue temp notes covering the land purchase in HABIT for the Yoder/HABIT Sewer Districts expansion.
"We would issue a temp note, the county would," said Reno County Administrator Randy Partington. "The county would use reserve money of ours to pay for the land purchase. Then, the utility districts would have to pay the county back, with whatever interest rate we determine, what it would do on the retail market. What that interest rate would be, we would charge the utility districts and they would pay that back. We would put that into the financing for the overall project."
The commission also had the option of paying for the project out of ARPA funds, which would have reduced that amount remaining to be spent, but not left the utility districts on the hook for the debt, a motion to that effect was defeated by a 3-2 vote before deciding on the temporary note path.
Also, commission chair Daniel Friesen still wants to explore the option of what it would cost to pipe the Yoder and HABIT sewer up to the City of Hutchinson's system before they actually build the new lagoons.
It will cost $1000 to find out if that's possible and the City would still have to agree to it and to what they would charge the county for the work, above and beyond what it would cost to get it there.
"Rough estimate, between the engineer and I is $4 million for that, to run it to Hutchinson," said Reno County Public Works Director Don Brittain. "That would be for the pumps and everything, to get it to Hutchinson and then we'd pay Hutchinson to take it."
Given that the estimate of the lagoon and infrastructure project is $6 million, Friesen wants to know if they would take it or not.
"I continue to be baffled, why we can't work really hard to negotiate with the city," Friesen said. "Even if they've said no, it's $2 million on the table at this point. It makes sense to work to try to negotiate that."
There are also grants to help with the project that need to be applied for soon, so this is an issue the commission will be dealing with quite a bit in the coming months.
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