Quincy OKs Microsoft deal, changes street name

QUINCY — The Quincy City Council gave the go ahead on Tuesday to a draft a final agreement with Microsoft allowing the company to finish paying for the city’s industrial wastewater reuse plant and recoup some of its costs from future customers.

“We want terminology (in an agreement) to last 20 years,” said City Attorney Alan Galbraith.

The council gave Galbraith and City Administrator Tim Snead the power to finalize an agreement with the Redmond software firm, which has a major data center in Quincy, and is expected to cost the firm around $15 million to complete.

Galbraith said the agreement with Microsoft was necessary because the state legislature has failed to pass a capital budget, and thus there is no state funding to finish the industrial reuse wastewater treatment plant.

The agreement is necessary so that Quincy can meet its obligations to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to stop dumping treated industrial wastewater into a USBR drainage ditch. It will also enable industrial users in Quincy, from data centers like Microsoft to food processors like Lamb Weston, to use treated water in their operations, negating the need to draw upon potable water from wells or the city’s system.

However, Galbraith said the agreement still needed to specify how Microsoft would recoup some of its initial investment from future customers. While Microsoft is currently the only customer of the industrial reuse wastewater treatment system, the hope is others will buy into the system.

“The issue surrounds how to draft latecomer fees,” Galbraith said. “We’re almost there.”

The city council also approved an ordinance changing the name of M Street Northeast (also known as Road 11 Northwest) between Central Avenue to Columbia Way and Jackrabbit Road, in honor of the city’s new high school, which is currently being built on a site on the north side of M Street.

“The city received a request from students to change the name of M Street to Jackrabbit Way,” said City Engineer Ariel Belino. “We’re proposing Jackrabbit Street for uniformity. East-west roads are all streets, and north-south are avenues, though Jackrabbit Way sounds better.”

However, the council vote was not unanimous, with council member Sonia Padron voting against.

“I like Jackrabbit Way,” she said.

As part of the ordinance, the council also formally renamed a portion of 8th Avenue Southeast from A Street Southeast to F Street Southeast to Bob Jacques Way. Apparently, the council agreed to rename the street some time ago, but never actually did.

“While researching it, we discovered no ordinance was passed,” Belino said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.