The Buchanan City Council voted unanimously this week to approve the final logo design to be painted on the city’s two water towers at Front and Moccasin streets.
The new logo, which reads “Buchanan: A Promise Community,” was chosen to reinforce the city’s commitment to Buchanan students.
The council previously awarded the bid to repaint the exterior of its two water towers to Fedewa Inc., of Hastings, for $170,800. The approval of the new design, and the decision to paint it on each tower, will add an additional $3,000 per tower to the cost of the bid, for a total of $176,800.
The project was budgeted for $210,000 with the alternate logos.
Work on the water towers is expected to begin in spring.
“That project [the Promise] is an opportunity and a benefit and a scholarship that will be here forever. That is the way it has been designed,” said City Manager Bill Marx. “With that consideration, and the fact that project, that opportunity, sets us apart from most other communities, I thought it was appropriate for [the council] to do whatever we can to promote that project within our community.”
The logo was presented to the Promise board, which showed support of the logo by agreeing to pay for $3,000 of the total $6,000 additional cost, according to Marx.
The council also unanimously approved entering into an $18,100 contract with Dixon Engineering for water tower inspection and technical services. Dixon, the same company that reviewed the bid submissions for the painting of the water towers, will provide oversight, inspection and water testing of the work done by Fedewa Inc. while the company paints the city’s two water towers.
“[Dixon] will inspect the work [of Fedewa Inc.], make sure that it is complete and that it has been done to the specifications that [the council] approved in the bid agreement,” Marx said.
Other agenda items during the meeting were:
• In a 4-1 vote, the council voted to pay Kevin Barker, owner of the New Carbon Building at 324 Dewey St., $4,722 due to his overpayment of loan for the purchase of the building.
Barker and the DDA entered into a purchase agreement in July 2003 which allowed for credits based on job creation and improvements to the building; Barker earned $30,000 worth of credits. The remaining loan amount of the agreement is $25,278.12, which requires the DDA to reimburse Barker the remaining amount of his earned credits.
Commissioner Patricia Moore abstained from the vote to avoid an potential conflict of interest due to her renting space in the building.
• The council unanimously approved to allow the Buchanan fire and police departments to submit a grant application to the Region 5 Homeland Security Planning Board to help purchase eight new Motorola 800 MHz Model APX 6000XE single-band portable radios.
The radios would replace the current aging models, which are no longer supported by Motorola. The grant would pay for 80 percent of the cost of the radios and the city would agree to pay the remaining 20 percent. The cost to the city would be $8,400, according to Marx.