The flume is finished. At City Council on Monday evening, Mayor Don McCormick said that the last large rock was placed last Thursday and water is flowing through Mark Creek again rather than the bypass.
There will be landscaping and clean up work to be done in the spring, but for all intents and purposes the project — cause of considerable angst for two different mayors and councils — is wrapped up.
With the first phase of the flume going vastly over its estimated budget, Council kept a much closer eye on phase II. In December of 2015 it was announced that the second phase was $163,689 over budget, a figure Mayor McCormick said he could live with given the scope of the project. There is also an additional cost since the project ran well over the expected finish date. Who will pay those costs — city or contractor — will be decided through arbitration.
McCormck says there will be a full report on the entire project submitted to Council, however, it is unlikely that it will be written until the dispute with the contractor is settled.
“However that turns out will affect the final financials. Shortly after that is settled, we’d like to see the report. I’d like it to include lessons learned and it will cover the entire project. A lot of the difficulties with Phase II were caused by Phase I, so we want to look at all of it.”
McCormick says that overall feedback is positive on phase Ii although there have been some complaints about the new concrete flume put in by BJ’s Restaurant.
“People are complaining that it is not really very artistic. We will be doing a few things to enhance that area.”
The City will plan an event in the spring to celebrate the completion of the project.