Waterline Goes The Extra Mile

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, October 23, 2012

CUMBERLAND – Cumberland County is getting more bang for its buck, now that a change order submitted by the County has been approved by the USDA.

Excess grant money will be used to extend the waterline further than initially expected. However, the County did have to assume a “slight amount of exposure,” according to County Administrator Vivian Giles, in order to expand the reach of the waterline extension.

Although additional grant funds already approved by the USDA's Rural Development would have gone unused if the County had not requested the change order, the board expressed concern regarding acquiring additional debt to increase the expansion.

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During its June 2011 meeting, the Board of Supervisors approved a $939,000 revenue bond and accepted a $1 million dollar grant from the USDA's Rural Development to fund the waterline extension.

The change order is based on excess grant funds that would otherwise have gone unused.

During the September Board of Supervisors meeting, Giles requested a motion from the board authorizing her to execute a change order request.

The letter to be executed referred to a change order to include the Eastern Extension of the Route 60 waterline and stated: “Based on the budget, we concur with you that there are adequate revenues to cover the necessary expenses. As requested by USDA, Cumberland County will agree to pay for any unforeseen revenue shortfalls to complete this waterline though none are anticipated.”

At the time, Giles informed the board that the amount of exposure for the County was slight.

Supervisor Bill Osl, District One, moved to “authorize the county administrator to approve the change order not to exceed the dollar amount that is left over from the project.”

He responded in the affirmative when Giles clarified, “And to authorize executing this letter… if there were a short fall?”

All board members voted in favor of the motion, except for Lloyd Banks, District Two, who abstained.

During the October meeting of the board, Wheeler voiced concern that the minutes of the September meeting did not indicate Osl's wording “not to exceed the dollar amount that is left over from the project.”

Wheeler stated that “the intention was that we wanted to keep it at that amount. We didn't want to go borrow money.”

Osl agreed that the motion included the “not to exceed” wording because the board didn't want to have to borrow more money. But he was also under the impression that the motion had approved Giles to execute the letter.

The letter, which was included in the addendum board packet when the original vote occurred, clearly states that the County will pay for any unexpected “revenue shortfalls.”

Banks pointed out that he understood that the board desired to stay under and not take on more debt, but that the County assumed responsibility for any amount over that, which prompted him to abstain.

The minutes have now been revised to include the motion's original stipulation, “not to exceed the dollar amount that is left over from the project,” as well as indicating that the County Administrator was authorized to execute “the letter that the County would be responsible if there were a short fall.”

During both meetings, Giles reiterated that the County does not expect there to be a shortfall. She stated that over and above the money that is needed for the extension, the County has a $3,500 cushion.

She also pointed out that nothing in the current project has gone over budget. In fact, she stated that the contractor, Lyttle Utilities, Inc., “saved the County about $50,000, by going to VDOT and requesting a different substance used for some of the fill.”

The waterline is now scheduled to extend eastward up Route 60 to Route 13, traveling past the intersection up to 300 feet in both directions.

Turning down Route 13 would also make the waterline more accessible to the fire department in the future, according to Giles.

When asked whether the water mains would be large enough to support the industrial park, Giles clarified that because going down Poorhouse Road, where the industrial park will be located, was not covered in the preliminary engineering report, the County was not able to file a change order to extend the waterline in that direction.

However, although the extension will not go down Poorhouse Road, it will allow the waterline to reach as far as the intersection, making the waterline more accessible to the industrial park when the time comes.

County staff recently met with property owners along the proposed extension, explaining the benefits of the waterline and requesting user agreements. According to Greg Baka, director of economic and community development, citizens approached about signing the user agreement have been “really receptive.” Property owners who sign a user agreement at this point in the process will have the usual $4,000 tap fee reduced to $50. The County hopes to secure all of the user agreements in the next few weeks.