Quincy plans to finish projects

QUINCY — Quincy plans to spend roughly $400,000 on improvements

during 2011.

The improvements coming from the city’s current expense fund

include continuing improvements to the senior center, the

Reiman-Simmons House and the pool.

The current expense fund includes administration, financial and

record services and police, and is expected to have a $2 million

reserve in it for the year.

“We’re doing very well. The data centers’ contributions have helped

our general fund,” Mayor Jim Hemberry said.

The mayor said the large reserve is mostly due to uncertainty about

whether the state Department of Revenue will request more money

from the city. Earlier this year, the city refunded $1.3 million in

taxes.

“We’ve held onto that money mostly because of the tax situation. We

want to make sure there is not going to be any type of future

payment, before we say what plans we have looking forward,”

Hemberry said. “You don’t need that much money in the reserve. It’s

a $3.5-$4 million fund ... You want to keep $500,000 in the fund.

We don’t need $2 million. We hopefully will get a response from the

Department of Revenue soon.”

Part of the reason for the city’s reserve is a transfer of money

from the street construction reserve fund into the current expense

fund. Property tax revenue is normally divided between the current

expense fund, street fund and the street construction reserve

fund.

“I

put that additional money into the current expense fund,” Hemberry

said. “(The construction reserve fund) does very well anyway. We

don’t have a lot of projects coming out of that fund.”

While the city is postponing spending its reserve, it will move

forward on completing renovations to the senior center. Renovations

to the bathrooms, the ceiling and new lights and plumbing has been

installed during 2009 and 2010, at a cost of about $185,000.

The total cost of all the planned upgrades was $226,775, according

to MJ Neal and Associates. The remaining portions of the project

include making cosmetic upgrades, such as covering exposed ducts

and pipes, adding vinyl wall coverings, new molding and chair

rails.

The city also plans to add more parking at the Reiman-Simmons

House. The city purchased land next to the museum two to three

years ago and will turn it into a parking lot next year.

Along with the projects, the city plans to purchase a new police

vehicle, and add new equipment at the park and the pool.

The city is still looking for money to complete its water reuse

facility. The first phase of the project to carry water to the data

centers to use in cooling towers was finished in 2009. The pipe was

extended from the municipal wastewater facility to Microsoft.

The next phase is estimated to cost about $2.1 million and extend

to pipe to the Yahoo!, Intuit and future Sabey data centers as well

as Columbia Colstor. The city has spent more than a year trying to

get funding for the project.

“We’re still trying to find funding sources. We made an application

to the (U.S. Economic Development Administration,)” Hemberry said.

“We’re always looking around for funding.”

The city is facing the pending expiration on permits allowing

Yahoo! and Intuit to use the municipal wastewater plant. The state

Department of Ecology permits expire in 2013. Hemberry said the

city will have a solution before the permits expire.

“There’s a lot of different options. We’re going to try and come up

with workable solutions that are affordable and does what we want

it to do,” he said. “The cost of the (reuse) facility will be borne

by the users of that facility, which for the most part will be the

data centers.”