The next council meeting is April 14.
Public Works Director Gary Morton was asked after the meeting if tabling the resolution would delay the project. He couldn’t answer that question because he hadn’t received any direction from council, he said.
Council members Todd Hickman and Tom Hagedorn, two members on the Public Woks Committee, said they had too many questions to support the project Tuesday night.
“There was a lot of information that wasn’t given to us,” Hagedorn told the Journal-News after the meeting. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing. It’s hard to make an $8 million decision without all the information.”
During the Public Works meeting, Hagedorn asked Morton if the city had a “back-up plan” if residents didn’t want the city to run a water line through their property.
“I’m not too concerned about it,” Morton said.
He added the city would “make it happen” and he’s confident residents will support the project because it will benefit the school district and the city.
Hagedorn said he didn’t want the water improvements to delay the opening of the new high school. That would be a “total cluster,” he said.
Morton said the water distribution system serving the Monroe Local Schools campus was installed between 1966 and the mid-1990s and wasn’t designed or sized to accommodate the growth the city and school district have experienced in subsequent decades.
The “best option,” he said, involves requiring about 16,000 to 17,000 linear feet of 12-inch water main, according to a city document.
The estimated cost is about $8 million, Morton said.
He said about 9,000 linear feet of the water main is 65-70 years old and has “served its useful life.”
The project would be broken into two phases: Convert Yankee Road, upsize Todhunter Road and Wicklow Road, construct school and water tower loop. The second phase would extend Yankee Road to Carson Road.
City Manager Larry Lester has said council could consider two alternative plans.
The city either can upgrade the water distribution infrastructure, ensuring adequate flow for the school district, or the city doesn’t upgrade its municipal infrastructure and the school district would likely be required to construct a ground storage tank on its property to hold enough water to meet the new high school’s flow requirements.
The $62 million new high school construction project, which will house grades 9-12, is on schedule to be ready by August 2028, Monroe Schools Superintendent Robert Buskirk has said.
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