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Athens will pay for tower air pumping system

Athens will pay for tower air pumping system Athens will pay for tower air pumping system

The Athens Village Board voted unanimously on Monday to pay Municipal Well & Pump of Waupun $15,250 for a temporary pressure system to be used during the water tower painting project in July. Village board member Dwight Lenhard was absent from the meeting.

Two large blue air pressure tanks have already been delivered to the village since Chris Perkins, village board sewer and water committee chairman, held an emergency meeting on June 14. The air pressure tanks will ensure village residents will maintain their normal level of water pressure in their homes when the Athens water tower is drained to be repainted.

The village thought the temporary pressure system was included in Viking Painting’s original $149,800 bid to paint the inside and outside of the Athens water tower but James Orr, Madison, who brokered the contract between the village and Viking Painting of La Vista, Neb., told the village otherwise.

Perkins said Viking Painting will begin prep work after the Monday, July 4, holiday for the water tower painting, before it begins to repaint the inside and outside of the water tower sometime in July. Village board members also voted unanimously on keeping the same color scheme of a white water tower with blue lettering of the word “Athens” and picture of the village square’s gazebo. In other news:

n Greg Pitel, accountant at Kerber Rose in Shawano, appeared via teleconference at Monday’s meeting. He presented the village of Athens 2022 financial reports and commended the village board for enacting a 3 percent increase in village residents’ water charges and a 5 percent increase in their sewer charges at the beginning of this year to help the village with deficits in both its water and sewer utility departments.

Pitel told the village board it’s always a good practice for municipalities to gradually raise water and sewer rates for residents each year, instead of waiting and enacting a large increase in one year.

Athens Village Board president Chuck Kornack said he wants to wait and see what impact the village’s increases in residents’ water and sewer charges on Jan. 1 will have on getting the village utility departments out of debt.

n The village board voted unanimously to have the village pay $36,300 to Bowl Rite Resurfacing, which is located in the Milwaukee area, to install new synthetic bowling lanes in The Hall bowling alley located in the basement of Athens Community Hall.

Kornack said right now the village only has a combined $30,000 available in its two bowling alley accounts to spend on new bowling lanes., The project likely won’t be completed until next summer, her predicted.

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