Jay pushes ahead on its park renovations

The Jay Town Council was updated on the progress of the Bray-Hendricks Park Renovation Monday night and welcomed District 3 State Rep. Dr. Joel Rudman, who attended the meeting and addressed possible funding for the wastewater treatment facility.

Dewberry Engineering's David Tiller told council members STOA Architects indicated they will have architectural packages ready for bid on Nov 15.

With about $5.5 million in grant funding available, Mayor Shon Owens expressed concern about what grant funding can be spent on building construction and what can be spent on civil construction.

"There's a lot of confusion on how that money can be spent and how that money can't be spent," said Owens.

Seib said the town of Jay plans to build mostly fields and top ground work but not very much of the civil and building aspects of the renovation.

"We have to bid the grant stuff out as one package," said Seib. "Then the town stuff is in question, whether we split it up and bid it separately or not."

Grant administrator Robin Phillips with Jones Phillips and Associates told the council she had no contract yet, but she is hoping to get one in October.

"I have started the environmental review process and I want to include the ball fields and everything in the environmental review," said Phillips. "It has to be cleared, which takes two or three months to do."

Once it is approved by the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), Phillips said DEO will release the funds and then the decision on how to bid it out can be made.

She suggested one way is to bid out the infrastructure work, which includes drainage and paving together, also known as a 'civil site package', according to Tiller, then bid out the building of vertical structures and the ball fields separately. The town may attempt to complete the ball fields to save money.

Owens was expressing concern that one grant can go out to different contractors and Phillips said yes.

Phillips said they have to wait until the environmental review is clear before that can go out to bid. She said that they have design specs, plans specs done, so as soon as they get the release of funds from the state, they can get started.

Owens suggested the start is at least five months out, if not longer, and Phillips said everything is contingent on the state's timeline, not the town's.

"People think we are starting next month," said Owens.

"We are at the will of the government right now," said Councilwoman Jane Hayes.

"It's a misconception that you have the money sitting in a bank account somewhere, but you don't," said Phillips. "It's been obligated to the town."

Owens said he had assumed the town would be breaking ground in January, but it may be later still.

Phillips said that optimistically, sometime between January and spring is a good estimation for starting the park, if nothing comes up that could slow the process down.

Seib said two grants have deadlines: December 2024 to build the east entrance parking and March 2025 to get the basketball court built.

"That means we need to complete those," said Seib.

Owens was concerned how that would unfold with the bidding process and Seib said he could go back to the DEO and ask for an extension. Phillips said showing progress will certainly be favorable for that to happen.

"And we're estimating 12 months of construction," said Owens. "So March of 2025 is when we could potentially see the park open up."

WWTP drying bed #3

The town is eyeing installing a third sludge drying bed that will increase capacity and keep the water treatment process flowing more smoothly.

Tiller with Dewberry Engineering suggested they may be able to get one for $300,000 and can find sources of funding for it.

Owens asked what the advantage was for installing another sludge bed. Tiller said Jay is the only wastewater plant around the area that can handle sanitary sewer trucks for pump out, which is overloading the sludge and more drying bed space would better accommodate the sludge being brought.

Seib said another bed would save the cost of having to haul the wet sludge in trucks in winter months.

He said the net revenue created for last year as of September 30 was about $80,000 for the town.

Seib asked District 3 State Rep. Dr. Joel Rudman, who attended the meeting, if he thought seeking legislative appropriations to fund a drying bed for the town was a good idea and if there is a price limit.

"I would say that we've gotten pretty good at getting things $500,000 or less, that seems to play a little better," said Rudman.

Owens pointed out that in a small town, finding creative ways to increase revenue is challenging.

"Allowing some of these septic tank companies to dump their waste in our facility has brought revenue but we've got to increase our capacity so it doesn't effect our sewer plant is not effected in a negative way," said Owens. "That's pretty positive to have $130,000 revenue."

Councilwoman Hayes agreed that it will also help as the town as its population grows to have an extra drying bed in place in the future.

Seib did say the facility is at about 40 percent capacity now, which is managing the infrastructure well.

The next council meeting will be at 7 p.m., Monday, Oct. 16. at town hall. The public is invited.