City Council to use water fund to pay for sludge dome demolition, leaves $350,000 grant for riverfront play area

QUINCY — Two aldermen changed their minds on Monday night and were the swing votes in an 8-6 decision by the Quincy City Council to approve the low bid from Blick’s Construction for $143,413 to demolish a sludge pump station south of Clat Adams Bicentennial Park on the riverfront — using money from the city’s water fund to pay for it.

One week ago, aldermen defeated by a 7-6 vote a resolution to use money from the water fund to pay for demolition. Alderman Mike Rein (R-5) said afterward he didn’t want money spent by people paying water usage rates to pay for the demolition when a $350,000 grant was available to pay for it.

Aldermen Tony Sassen (R-4) and Glen Ebbing (R-5) switched their votes from last week to favor the resolution.

The difference between this week’s vote and last week’s vote was the news from Wednesday’s Quincy Riverfront Development Corporation that it plans to build an interactive play area — originally planned to be north of the gazebo in Clat Adams Park — on a lot just north of an inoperative sludge pump station.

Much of the cost of the play area will be covered by a $350,000 grant secured three years ago by State Sen. Jil Tracy from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

When discussion of the resolution started during Monday’s meeting, Rein said, “I thought it was obvious last week that we had approved the project but not the funding. The money (to pay for the demolition) should come out of that grant we received.

“It’s clear the money is available for us. It seems that we don’t necessarily have to send half of it back. We just apply that to ongoing improvements at the water treatment plant. Millions of dollars of work needs to be done down there. I’m not sure what this particular ordinance is trying to accomplish here.”

Director of Public Works Jeffrey Conte said he reintroduced the resolution because he didn’t believe he did a good job explaining the funding last week.

“I understand some of you have opinions on that, and that’s OK,” Conte said. “I didn’t feel what we were proposing last week was crystal clear to everyone.”

“Even if we did use a portion of the $350,000 to tear down the sludge dome, that money’s eventually got to be repaid to the riverfront group,” Quincy Mayor Mike Troup said. “It was presented as a placeholder because (the grant is) not assigned directly to the city. It’s assigned to the riverfront (corporation). When (the riverfront corporation) had an acceptable project that they needed the money for, they would get that money back (from the city).”

Rein said city water customers have seen two rate increases in the past 15 months, and “I don’t want to see us go back to the well and jack up ratepayers’ taxes.”

When Rein asked what was planned for when the sludge dome is demolished, Director of Planning Chuck Bevelheimer said the property — owned by the city — would be developed into an interactive play area.

“Why (do) we (need to) have a splash pad or whatever? Who are we selling it to?” Rein asked.

“We’re trying to get a point of destination for the public down there. These things are very popular with the public,” Bevelheimer replied. “We think they’ll bring people to the riverfront, which is really critical to getting momentum for doing other projects. … When we went through the whole redevelopment master plan, the public comments we got were that the riverfront is a resource that we have not used.”

Mike Farha (R-4) told Bevelheimer he did not support the plan to put the play area on the riverfront.

“The architecture will not fit, and I’ve seen your plan,” he said. “We’re not Hannibal. Let me help you. We are not Hannibal. We don’t have Mark Twain. Everybody knows Mark Twain, and they’ve done a lot to put a lot of money into that. Me personally, before I put money into that, I’d rather put money into the homeless.”

Conte told aldermen that if they rejected the plan to pay for the demolition out of the water fund, he would have to cancel the contract with Blick Construction and re-bid the project.

Jeff Bergman (R-2) said he believed the demolition should qualify as a riverfront development project, understanding that it would be unfortunate that some of the grant money would be left on the table.

“It’s all taxpayer dollars,” he said. “There’s no grant fairy out there giving us free money. It’s coming out of the same pair of pants, coming out of different pockets. It’s our money that we’re putting in there.”

Troup said he was unsure if the state had approved the demolition as a qualified project to be paid for by the state grant.

Opposed were Greg Fletcher (R-1), Bergman, Farha, Rein, Richie Reis (D-6) and Jake Reed (R-6). In favor were Eric Entrup (R-1), Dave Bauer (D-2), Ken Hultz (R-3), Kelly Mays (R-3), Sassen, Ebbing, Ben Uzelac (D-7) and Jack Holtschlag (D-7).