East Carbon Applies to CIB for Money to Fund City Sewer Pond Project

By Sun Advocate

East Carbon has applied for money from the Utah Permanent Community Impact Board to revamp the city’s sewer lagoons west of town.
But city officials will not know for sure whether East Carbon will get the CIB funding until April.
“The committee made a motion to approve it, but the final confirmation won’t come through for a couple of months,” pointed out East Carbon Mayor Dale Andrews at a city council meeting on Tuesday. “I think things are mostly sealed up though.”
The lagoons, which were built in the 1970s, are in dire straits and in need of repair, according to East Carbon officials
Engineers have been to East Carbon a number of times in recent months to determine what needs to be done to revamp the lagoons and how much money it will cost to complete the sewer pond project.
The apparent funding from the CIB will be split between East Carbon and Sunnyside, said Andrews.
Sunnyside also uses the East Carbon lagoons for the town’s sewage.
During the state committee proceedings, the panel moved to recommend that the CIB grant Sunnyside $430,000 for the project.
The committee members also decided that East Carbon should receive a $460,000 grant for the project plus a $520,000 no interest 20 year loan to complete the sewer lagoon repairs.
“That is a great loan for no interest,” said Andrews. “Our residents pay $5.20 per month for sewer now. With that loan, the rate will go up another $4.50 per month for the life of the loan.”
Even with the raise, East Carbon will still have one of the lowest sewer rates in the state. Andrews indicated that, without the support of East Carbon Development Corporation, the rates in the town would be more than $35 per household per month.
“Once all the funding is established, we will be having a public hearings on the increase,” said the East Carbon mayor.
Moving on to an unrelated business matter, the council discussed the possibility of offering Sunnyside a trade in police service payments for a patrol vehicle owned by the neighboring town.
Sunnyside purchase the patrol vehicle when the smaller town had a police force several years ago.
“Sam Leonard, East Carbon police chief, went to go on a call the other morning and his Bronco wouldn’t start,” said Councilwoman Joyce Caviness. “It’s time we replaced his vehicle and I have information that Sunnyside might be interested in doing this type of thing.”
Sunnyside has had the vehicle up for sale for some time, but the city hasn’t sold the patrol car yet.
The vehicle is a fully equipped patrol cruiser, with lights and a radio already installed.
“It’s about time that Bronco was retired,” stated Andrews. “It’s 10 years old and has 140,000 miles on it. That’s a lot for a police vehicle.”
The council voted to bid on the Sunnyside vehicle. The patrol car would be purchased in addition to the police vehicle that was approved last month.
The East Carbon City Police Department currently has four law enforcement officers and only three vehicles.
In addition to authorizing bidding on the Sunnyside patrol vehicle, the East Carbon council recognized the city police force for the department’s recent detective work.
“Along with the some of the dedicated hunters, we put up a really nice sign at the archery range not long ago,” said Councilman Dave Maggio. “We were kind of taking bets on how long it would be before someone shot it up. Some bet a few days, others a week. It was destroyed in less than 12 hours by a shotgun blast. I thought it was a total loss and that we would never find out who did it.”
“Officer Phillip Holt came down and picked up the shotgun shells and started asking around. He found some kids that gave a description of the vehicle that might have been involved and Holt found the guy. He has now paid for the sign,” continued Maggio..
Andrews also said that last month the town had a major string of burglaries that was apparently connected with some crimes in other towns, said Andrews. And the East Carbon police did a lot of the leg work in investigating the crimes as well.
“The FBI is handling the case now, but our force did a lot of the work on it,” he said.
The council also voted to spend $2,000 to repair the roof on the old bus garages the city has inherited from the school district.
“That cost is only for the materials,” said Andrews. “We will have our city crews install the metal roofing and that will save us money.”
The money for the project will come out of the city’s capital project funds. The garages will be used to store city equipment that is currently outside or spread around in smaller buildings.