Council approves Blue Mound Road water/sewer extension project to move forward, awards contract to Globe Contractors; public raises assessment concerns

Pewaukee — After a public hearing that drew multiple property owners, the Pewaukee Common Council accepted the preliminary engineering report for the Blue Mound Road/Tacoma Hill water and sewer extension, adopted preliminary resolutions and voted to award the construction contract to Globe Contractors.

City Engineer Maggie described the project as a 12-inch water-main extension to create a secondary loop for Tacoma Hill, improve fire protection, and allow the city to abandon Well 5 (a well the engineer said has a radium-related “contempt order”). She said the city publicly bid the work and received two bids, with Globe Contractors submitting the low price of $2,066,227.50; later in the meeting a motion to award the contract to Globe was made for $1,533,227.50 and carried by the council.

Maggie provided a parcel-level assessment plan and the engineering cost allocation. She told the council the water-main assessment (equated back to an 8-inch equivalent) is $56,198.17 per residential-equivalent unit (REU) before caps and that the council at a prior meeting had preliminarily capped that amount at $27,822.21 per unit. She also presented water-service assessment amounts and the council’s prior capped service figures: a 1 1/4-inch residential water service estimated at $31,119.92 (capped at $22,713) and other service sizes with corresponding caps. For sanitary sewer she said the average sewer assessment in the engineer’s packet was $53,498.35 per REU, which the council had previously capped at $43,000.30; later staff supplied lateral assessment figures that the council had preliminarily capped at $13,860.

Maggie emphasized the cost-share structure: the utility funds will cover a substantial portion of the project. "If all properties were to come in as 1 unit, the water utility would pick up just over $1,200,000 of the project cost, which is 87% of the cost of the project," she said.

During the public hearing several nearby property owners expressed alarm at the draft assessment figures. A property owner who identified himself as Jack (N4W22496 Blue Mound Road) said the preliminary notice listed multiple deferred units against a single tax parcel and that he could not afford the figure he received; at one point he told the council, "I'm 78 years old ... What would I be willing to pay? If it was $50,000 I might be able to live with it. But not what I'm looking at here." Caleb Lieper (N4W22625 Blue Mound Road) said he is a first-time homeowner and said a large assessment would be a significant financial burden; he asked whether connection would be required before a sale and was told water connection is required at time of sale but payment of an assessment may be made via the city's installment plan.

Industrial and small-business owners on Blue Mound Road also spoke: Dan Urshan (N4W22450) and Rob Zelloffer (N4W22540) said they need clearer, itemized numbers and welcomed the council’s discussion earlier that evening about potential caps.

After public comment the council voted on several items. A motion was made to accept the preliminary engineer’s report, adopt preliminary resolutions (including notice of intent to reimburse expenditures and a preliminary special-assessment resolution) and award the contract to Globe Contractors. The motion included language referencing assessment caps the council had been discussing generally earlier in the meeting (a cap discussion had not been finalized). The motion carried on a 4–2 vote.

Council members noted that the parcel-by-parcel assessment notices will be finalized after construction pricing and final unit determinations are complete; final assessments are adopted in a later resolution after construction is complete. Staff said connection charges (RCAs) and lateral/house-connection costs remain the property owner’s responsibility and are due when a plumbing permit is obtained.

Next steps: the city will proceed with contract administration for construction by Globe Contractors, finalize the detailed assessment roll and publish the final assessment resolution after project completion. The council also asked staff — in the same meeting’s earlier policy discussion — to develop a formal assessment-cap policy to apply to future projects and to gather contractor cost data to better benchmark assessments.