CALLAWAY — Callaway hopes to get state or federal funds to replace the water system at Sandy Creek.
With the help of Preble Rish Engineering, which provided maps of the system, City Manager Michael Fuller submitted a $1.27 million grant request to state Rep. Jay Trumbull, R-Panama City, in late January.
“At this point this is something we would like to do,” Fuller said.
However, the request is not listed for funding on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee, which Trumbull serves on. According to a representative from the subcommittee, the request would have to be on the list to receive funding this year.
If applying to the subcommittee proves to be a dead end, Fuller will pursue a Community Development Block Grant, and if that does not work, he will inquire with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection or Northwest Florida Water Management District helping with it. Not part of the plan is spending more on engineering on a project that is not yet necessary, Fuller said.
“This is just one of many grants,” Fuller said.
City Commissioner Melba Covey, who recently toured the utility system at Sandy Creek, disagreed that improvements to the system are not necessary now.
“That is a bad, bad situation out there,” she said. “The sewer system is a major problem.”
The commission approved gathering financial information at its meeting Tuesday — from the start of the 2014-15 fiscal year — to determine if the city is spending more money on maintenance at Sandy Creek than the 25 percent surcharge they’re netting from utility accounts.
Fuller estimated that the city collected $375,000 in utility fees last year. City Attorney Kevin Obos guessed the city has collected between $700,000 and $800,000 in impact fees.
The history of the city’s acquisition of Sandy Creek poor maintenance by private utility company Utilities Inc., City Attorney Kevin Obos said. The city obtained the utility system in 2012, although the system is not in the city limits.
“No Callaway tax dollars are being spent out there,” Fuller said.
Residents at the meeting Tuesday skeptical of that claim based on needed maintenance. Covey described the lines as potato chip quality when they were installed — the cheapest available.
“You all told the citizens that it would never cost the citizens anything,” Covey said.
“You can keep saying that until the crows come home and it doesn’t matter,” Mayor Thomas Abbott countered.
Covey originally asked for financial information — all collected work orders – dating back to 2012. She settled for starting a new accounting ledger for Sandy Creek, making things easier on financial director Beverly Waldrip.
“We don’t gain anything by treating them different,” Abbott said of Sandy Creek.
On the Agriculture Natural Resources Subcommittee funding request list are two other Callaway projects: drainage at Kimbrel Avenue, estimated at $79,668 and road repaving and drainage at Poston Road, $577,100. Fuller said Kimbrel Avenue floods after every moderate rain with only three small subterranean pipes. That project, utilizing a large box culvert and raising the road, is already engineered and permitted because the city’s plan was to use CRA funding. With only $50,000 available, Fuller is pursuing other means.
“To steal a common phrase among politicians, it’s shovel ready,” Fuller said.
Part of Poston Road is unpaved and rain pushes sediment directly off the road into East Bay. Paving the road, and providing diversions for storm water pipes and maybe retention ponds should solve those issues. Fuller pursued NWFWMD grants for both Kimbrel Avenue and Poston Road but was unsuccessful.