BROKEN SEWER PIPES, NEW INSURANCE RATES - BUMP BUDGET WORKSHOP

Tuesday night, August 30, the City Commissioners were scheduled to preside over another in the current series of budget workshops (leading to a final budget hearing scheduled for Monday, September 26). Instead, they were called on to take care of two time-sensitive pieces of city business.

Most urgent was the Cedar Key Water and Sewer District`s discovery that two lateral sewer pipes, earlier judged not in need of replacement, were in fact collapsed.

The two old, clay pipes (one running from the Tony`s Seafood building; the other from the Historical Society Museum building) are within the State Road 24 right of way and thus under Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) jurisdiction.

Due to DOT`s jurisdiction, and because no damage to the two pipes had been detected in inspections leading up to the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA)`s contract with Ciraco Underground for the Phase II streets and utilities project, the pipes were not made part of the Phase II work due to be completed this week .

However, early this week, suspecting a problem under S.R. 24 between Tony`s Seafood and the Historical Society, the CKWSD ran a small video camera into the pipes and verified the collapse.

Ciraco Underground agreed to perform the repair under the cost structure in place for other Phase II work, but only if the work could be completed before the end of this week, while Ciraco equipment and personnel are still in Cedar Key. Costs would be substantially greater thereafter as a stand-alone repair.

With the state DOT indicating that it would allow the work to proceed upon assurance that the city would bear the cost, the city commissioners, sitting in their role as CRA directors, gave a quick go-ahead for the estimated $10,000 to $12,000 additional to Ciraco. The board of the CKWSD had met earlier and agreed to pay $5,000 of the additional cost.

An earlier printed agenda for the special meeting of the city commission listed one action item - city commission approval of new city employee insurance rates - to be followed by a "Marina Workshop."

CRA Chair Gene Hodges called the special meeting of the CRA for 6 p.m. "in advance of marina workshop." By 6:07 p.m., the commissioners had met as CRA directors and had approved the cost of repairing the two sewer pipes; convened a city commission meeting, complete with prayer, pledge, and public comment; and met as city commissioners to unanimously approve the new employee insurance rates.