Council reviews on-call engineering contract as city readies site review for $175 million utility project

The City Council heard a resolution authorizing an agreement with Lamp Ryerson Inc. for on-call professional engineering services and discussed using the firm to support due diligence on a municipal utility power plant site and ongoing development projects. City Administrator Mister Kerman said Lamp Ryerson could perform city-level site review and engineering duties that would complement IBTS's life, safety and inspection work at the plant site and added that Lamp Ryerson could also assist with residential development work at the former Hunters Crossing property, revisions to the unified development code, and MS4 stormwater-permit questions. Dan Miller of Lamp Ryerson was present to describe the scope of on-call services, and Mister Kerman said the city would likely assign the firm to coordinate with IBTS and the municipal utility on an initial review of the power plant site. Separately, Steve Stodden, president and CEO of the Missouri Public Utility Alliance, presented Marshall Municipal Utilities (MMU) with the American Public Power Association's Certificate for Excellence in Reliability. Stodden said MMU's electric service was available more than 99% of the time in 2024 and that Marshall was one of 15 Missouri utilities earning the honor in 2024. Stodden also told the council the power-plant project is a significant investment in the community and that the project team expects a groundbreaking at the plant site on July 22 at 9:00 a.m. He described the project as "around a $175,000,000 investment in the community." No final vote on the Lamp Ryerson resolution is recorded in the meeting transcript excerpt; the resolution was introduced and discussed. Why it matters: the Lamp Ryerson contract is intended to provide the city with an on-call engineering resource for multiple development and infrastructure efforts, including a major municipal utility generation project that the utility and its partners say will be a long-term capital asset. Next steps: the council will consider the Lamp Ryerson resolution and, if approved, the firm may be assigned the initial site-review tasks described by staff.