The Rutland City Board of Aldermen on Aug. 18 approved circulating Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan documents and authorized city staff to sign and resubmit grant and loan applications tied to the Connor Park combined sewer overflow storage project.

City officials told aldermen the project is designed to provide roughly 500,000 to 750,000 gallons of stormwater/sewer storage, depending on final bids, and that construction is expected to be bid for next year. Funding the work is tied to a CSO ARPA grant that the city previously received, and the Step 3 SRF loan application submitted for construction currently requests in excess of $7,000,000; staff said they expect final bids to come in lower than the present estimate.

At the meeting aldermen first voted to circulate the Step 2 funding application for signatures, then suspended the rules to consider the Step 3 loan application and circulated that for signatures as well. The board also voted to authorize Robert Prodovanski and Ted Gillen to continue as the city’s authorized representatives for the Clean Water SRF loan application process for the Connor Park CSO storage project.

Discussion: Public works and engineering staff explained that Step 2 is an administrative application step and Step 3 is the construction loan request. Staff said they will submit Step 3 ahead of bids and, if necessary, return later with an amendment once bids are received. No vote record identifying individual yeas/nays was read into the record; motions carried by voice vote.

Background: The city’s public works presentation identified the project as the intended use for ARPA-awarded CSO funds and tied the anticipated construction schedule to next year’s bidding cycle. The aldermen recorded no changes to the project scope at the meeting; staff acknowledged an administrative error on an earlier submittal and asked the board to re-sign the Step 2 documentation so the city could resubmit.

Next steps: Staff will finalize the SRF applications, submit them to the state program, complete bidding next year, and if necessary return to the board with a construction amendment if bids exceed current estimates.