WINFIELD | In its first meeting with new Town Council President Gerald Stiener at the helm, the Sewer Board on Monday approved transactions that brought two problematic sanitary sewer facilities in the Wyndance and Deer Creek Estates subdivisions under the town's control.
Dave Van Dyke, owner of Precision Homes Inc., developed Wyndance and Deer Creek Estates as Deer Creek Investors LLC and Deer Creek Development LLC. According to the agreement, the sanitary sewer system and sewage lift station that serve these subdivisions were “not in accordance with the plans for the sanitary sewer facilities.”
Those agreements, which have been in negotiations since April, were deferred by the Sewer Board from its Nov. 27 joint meeting with the Winfield Town Council.
VanDyke agrees to transfer all ownership and title to the lift station and sanitary sewer facilities as well as easements.
Winfield will pay VanDyke $62,000 for transferring ownership of the facilities. The transfer price will be paid from the Wyndance performance bond funds previously called for by the town.
According to the legal documents approved by the Sewer Board, the developer built and installed the facilities that serve both subdivisions. However, those facilities “were not included in the approved plans, specifications, and drawings submitted and approved by the Town for the Developer.”
The Sewer Board also approved emergency repairs at the Deer Creek sewage and lift station to prevent sewage from backing up into homes in Wyndance and Deer Creek Estates. The repairs couldn’t be done until the town controlled the facilities.
Town Councilman Don Samburg told the board that the Deer Creek sanitary lift station has only one functioning pump and no backup generator.
Last year the pump failed and sewage flooded some homes, Samburg said.
“We can’t afford to have that happen again,” he said.
Samburg, who is retired and has a mechanical engineering degree, has taken responsibility for analyzing the town’s sanitary sewer system.
The approval followed discussions between board members BC Spear and Mark Wacnik with Stiener and Samburg. Those discussions were about why the Town Council approved Nies Engineering to oversee the sewer repairs and why no scope of work or engineering was presented prior to approval being sought.
Both Spear and Wacnik are engineers who work at the BP oil refinery. Stiener, who as Town Council president is automatically the president of the sewer board, is owner of Wille Stiener Associates, a real estate company.
Spear made a motion to award the repairs at the lift station to Grimmer Construction, the company that originally installed the equipment, under the supervision of Nies Engineering. The motion was contingent upon Nies Engineering to provide specifications for the work.
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