Stimulus to pay for new generator

by Nathan Arneal
Published 4/14/21

The city of North Bend needs a new generator at its sewer plant, and a federal stimulus may be coming just in time to pay for it.

The backup power generator at the sewer plant is original to the plant’s construction in the early 1970s. Since then, most of the equipment at the plant has been upgraded, and the generator is no longer able to provide enough power to run it all.

City clerk Theresa Busse said the power blinked last Monday, April 5, and everything at the sewer plant shut down. Councilman Dan Minarick, who heads the city’s water and sewer department, said even if the plant ran at partial power, the current generator wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Minarick said a new generator and its installation would cost $38,102.28.
Busse said the city was recently informed it will receive a federal stimulus payment because of the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the city really didn’t incur any additional expenses due to the pandemic.

She said every city and county is due to receive a stimulus payment equal to 75% of its budget. For North Bend, that comes out to $214,000. The payment will come in two halves, with the first expected within a month and the second a year later.

There are restrictions and rules on how the money can be used, Busse said, and the only thing North Bend would be able to use it on is sewer and water, which would include the new generator for the sewer plant.

The council approved the purchase of the new generator at its April 6 meeting.
The city also renewed its contract with Hein Construction for street cleaning. Busse said they did a great job with the street cleaning, but sometimes they wouldn’t show up when they said they would. The price increased $500 to $2,300 per cleaning, and $3,000 for the first and last cleaning of the season.

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