City Manager Sonny Lewis said the land was appraised at $283,150, which will be the selling price. He said the proceeds from the land sale would go into a capital improvements fund for the future expansion of Community Park.
Lewis said the original 45-acre parcel was donated to the city in 1986 for a future park, but the city never developed the site for a park. In 1994, the city sold several acres of the parcel to Warren County Water & Sewer where a 5-million gallon water storage tank was constructed.
Chris Brausch, Warren County Water & Sewer Director, said no decision has been made yet as they still need to do more analysis of that site.
Warren County Commissioners have approved beginning the design process for the plant. If the county decides to move forward, Brausch said construction could take about two years to build the plant which would cost in the $20 million range and would be able to soften about 15 million gallons of water a day.
In April, Mayor Denny Centers said a previous vote by to council to waive competitive bidding “was an unusual situation and that this needed to be re-voted.”
In the second vote, Centers, who was absent from the original vote to waive competitive bidding, voted for the measure, and two other councilmen changed their previous votes from no to yes.