Coyner Springs late, over budget

The Coyner Springs Water Treatment Plant is eight days behind schedule and more than $400,000 over budget, Waynesboro city officials said Monday.
Still, Public Works Director Brian McReynolds said he expects work to be “substantially complete by the due date of Nov. 9, 2008.” Work has been delayed slightly by rain and mass amounts of rock.
“The good news is that we are within eight days of being on schedule,” Mayor Tim Williams said. “That’s a good report.”
Cost overruns on the treatment plant have more than been offset by work on the raw water main coming in 40-percent under budget. Officials had planned on that work to cost $1.97 million. Actual costs will be $1.18 million.
Three critical stages of the Jefferson Wells Raw Water Line have been completed, with the remainder of the line scheduled to be finished by Aug. 1.
The state Department of Health has mandated that all of Waynesboro’s water run to Coyner Springs by way of the Jefferson Wells Raw Water Line for better purification. This has sped up some planned projects at the plant.
In addition, the council discussed adding pre-emptive traffic signal devices that would allow emergency responders to change lights from red to green to accelerate response time. Fire officials said 20 of 32 signals are of concern. Installing the devices would cost $421,400.
Councilman Frank Lucente long has touted pre-emptive devices as a more efficient way to improve response time than building a west-end fire station. Voters backed the fire station project in a nonbinding referendum last fall. Lucente opposed building a new station but has said he will back voters’ wishes.
“It’s [pre-emptive traffic signals] certainly something we could do to improve response time,” Lucente said. “That’s what the West End Fire Department was all about. It’s not to say we’re not going to do it, but the West End Fire Department only increases response time in 18 percent of the city, whereas this will increase response time in the entire city.”
Councilwoman Nancy Dowdy disagreed.
“We need a west end fire station,” she said. “That is going to be the only thing – location – to impact response time. And manpower. It [pre-emptive traffic lights] may help a little bit, but is it going to impact it enough to make it safe? No. When it takes double the time to respond, we have a problem. This is nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
Gary P. Critzer, director of emergency operations for the Waynesboro Emergency Operations Center, said the pre-emptive devices would improve safety as well as response times.
“I can tell you that in 30 years of driving emergency vehicles, it certainly could have made intersections much, much safer,” he said.
The council met privately to discuss 12 applicants for the city attorney post. Robert Lunger announced his resignation earlier this year. He continues to serve on retainer.
Each council member came to the meeting with their own top picks seeking to compare with other members’ lists. Once the council decides on a group of several applicants, they will begin interviewing candidates.
“Hopefully council will have a consensus,” Councilwoman Lorie Smith said. “I would like to see a list of three to five applicants that we would schedule for interviews as soon as possible. Knowing that we meet two times a month for formal business meetings, I think this could easily be a couple months out in terms of logistically, just how often we are in session. There is a sense of needing to get this done as soon as we can.”
Council members are looking for many of the same things in a city attorney.
“We have a very inexperienced mayor and vice mayor and I don’t think they are familiar with protocol,” Dowdy said. “We need to ensure that we have a very good, well-experienced city attorney in terms of legalities and logistics.
“We are very vulnerable. We need someone who understands what we’re doing and how we’re doing it so that we can move forward. Our city is growing and we’re dealing with a lot of issues right now that are very important to the future of our city. We need to make sure that we are protected.”
Lucente agreed.
“I’m looking for someone who knows a little bit about the law,” Lucente said. “Maybe someone who has a little experience in city government or county government – some form of government.”
Also on Monday, Williams announced that Smith has been named as the third member of the finance committee. After the council elected Williams mayor July 1, he appointed himself and Lucente to the panel. City code requires that the committee be composed of three council members.