Council approves new dog license fee, gets update on sewer project's Phase Two

Date: 4/12/2011

April 13, 2011

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Editor

AGAWAM — The City Council unanimously passed an update to the town's dog licensing fees at its April 4 meeting.

It also approved the mayor's appointment of Scott Letendre to the Board of Registrars and heard updates on the next phase of the Feeding Hills sewer project and the progress of the Ad-Hoc Reorganization Subcommittee.

In new business, the council referred resolutions regarding conservation restrictions on land owned by the Western Massachusetts Electric Company, municipal retiree participation in Medicare and borrowing to build a new storage building at the Building Maintenance Facility to the appropriate committees for review.

Referring to the new Chapter 96 Ordinance concerning dogs as "11 pages of legalese on the control of dogs and cats in town," City Councilor Robert Magovern said the Ordinance Subcommittee acknowledged it was necessary to raise the dog licensing fee from $4 to $10 to fund the annual cost of entering into the Inter-Municipal Shelter Agreement with Westfield. The ordinance, he added, also insures the town will be in compliance with stricter, state-mandated animal control rulings that are expected to be passed within the next few years.

"It has to be done," he said, praising the work police Lt. Eric Gillis did on the ordinance and shelter agreement and complimenting the work of Animal Control Officer Allison Strong.

Council Vice President Robert Rossi, reporting for the Ad-Hoc Sewer Subcommittee, said as of March 3, Phase One of the Southwest Sewer Extension had been competed, with the exception of a manhole leakage test on Westfield Street and a single manhole repair on Springfield Street. This portion of the project is to be "fully operational" by summer.

According to Rossi, Phase One came in at "50 percent under budget," leaving $1.5 million of the original $3.7 million allotted for that phase available for initial work on Phase Two. He said the council previously approved allocating $643,600 of that $1.5 million for Phase Two design work, which was now 80 percent complete.

Rossi said this phase would include "21,000 feet of new sewer piping, with two waste water pumping stations, one on Pine Street and one on Barry Street."

Design work on the pumping stations is "25 percent complete."

Originally planned as a six-phase project, Rossi said the subcommittee wasn't aware of the high cost of designing and building pumping stations when mapping out the project and elected to combine the original Phase Two pumping station construction and Phase Three the laying of additional sewer pipe together and "call it Phase Two" to balance costs for bonding purposes.

The projected cost of Phase two is $7.3 million.

"We hope it will be far less," Rossi told Reminder Publications. "We hope that when Phase Two bids go out, they will come in as low as Phase One did."

Rossi said he expected bids to go out "in a few weeks," with construction slated to begin in mid-to-late summer.

At the completion of Phase Two, Rossi said the sewer project would be "50 percent completed, a goal that the [sub]committee was most eager to reach."

Rossi said residents affected by the sewer project would not see bills for their portion of the cost "until the project is up and running, and they will have the same payment schedule as previously announced."

The projected cost per resident is approximately $3,000, with taxpayers scheduled to pay the town over 20 years.