Lift station project revamped to stay on budget

By Ken Johnston
Editor

Editor’s Note: Due to the editor being on vacation last Monday he was unable to attend the regular monthly council meeting. Here are some highlights of town news as gathered from a phone conversation with Town Clerk Veldron Vogan last Wednesday.
New help
At last Monday’s council meeting council passed a motion after coming out of an in camera session to hire former town office employee Donna Wolanicki back on an interim basis. The reason being is employee Corey Dyck resigned. Council will now begin formerly looking for a replacement for Dyck with Wolanicki filling the gap until then.
Lift station behind schedule
Vogan also explained why the lift station project at the bottom of Sixth St. is not completed as initially planned. Earlier this year she told the Record they hoped it would be done by the end of July. As of this week the street is still closed with temporary pumps on it still doing the job.
“We had cost overruns and delays,” said Vogan. That has seen the original project morph from a contained building for electrical and a generator to the elimination of the structure. “Once the electrical is done we hope the project will be done sometime in August and on budget.”
The new lift station pumps will be in the ground, the generator and electrical box above ground, just not in a contained building as originally planned.
Election drought?
Will Rainy River have some new blood on council this fall? If the indicators so far are anything to gauge things by, the answer could be Rainy River may be lucky to have any blood running the town. In January of this year anyone wishing to run for office could pick up nomination forms at the town office. To date only two sets have gone out for five seats on council and one on the school board.
In April Mayor Deb Ewald said that if her health allowed she was considering running again as was councillor Gord Armstrong. Councillors Gerry Marchuk and Marilyn McAlister both said they were thinking of hanging up their hats as council members and councillor Brent Anderson had not made any decision.
To date no one has filed nomination papers and the deadline to do so is 2 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2010. The municipal election is Oct. 25, 2010.