At the Aug. 28 regular meeting the council addressed a change‑order request after contractors discovered multiple septic tanks on the site of a proposed RV park while preparing customer service connections. Staff reported crews found five separate septic tanks where project documents had budgeted for a single connection.

Consultant Johnny Taber (Taber’s Associates) explained that the sewer project initially accounted for one service connection and one septic decommissioning per address. When crews investigated the RV‑park parcel they found five septic systems and submitted a change‑order request to add connections and decommission each tank; the change order figure presented during the workshop was $45,000 for the additional taps and decommissioning work.

Council concerns and policy consideration: council members raised parity concerns, noting that a similar request from the school district had been handled such that the school’s additional connections were not funded by the loan/grant. Several council members said treating private commercial requests as exceptions could create a domino effect of additional city costs for other large properties.

Council decision: the council voted to limit the public‑funded hookup to one connection for the RV‑park parcel. The motion specified that BlackRock (the project contractor) would install a 6‑inch tap on the sewer main (the contractor’s work remains under warranty), and that any additional connections needed to tie together other septic tanks on the private property would be the property owner’s responsibility to install at private cost. Staff clarified private plumbers may perform the private plumbing work after the city-installed tap is completed.

Related action taken from executive session: the council also approved (in a separate action after executive session) a demobilization/mobilization change order with Sky Blue Utilities in the amount of $180,000 (motion recorded and approved unanimously in open session after the executive session concluded).

Why it matters: the decision limits one common type of change‑order expense for the city while preserving a single, larger public tap that should provide capacity for the parcel; the approach assigns future private plumbing and decommissioning costs to the property owner and reduces the risk the city will absorb additional retrofit costs for other large commercial parcels.