About three months have passed and a collapsed sewer line on Martin Luther King Drive still has not been repaired.
So, City Board members voted Tuesday to find another contractor if the job isn’t under way or completed by July 8 – even if it means spending a lot more money.
Meanwhile, the raw sewage is being routed around the collapse via an above-ground line.
The line has been run over at least twice causing raw sewage to spill out – something that Alderman Rufus Manley says he’s worried about.
His health issue concern has gone so far as for him to call state environmental inspectors who have been here, Manley said during a special City Board meeting Tuesday. He’s awaiting the inspector’s report.
The situation has dragged on so long that it even has the City Board’s most outspoken fiscally conservative member – James Yelton – looking at another, more expensive solution if that’s what it takes.
"Let’s go with the $69,000 guy," Yelton said.
He was making reference to a $69,500 proposal to excavate the site and lay new pipe. Another company said they could do the job for about $87,200.
A small Christian school will go in a former law office at 162 Highway 6 West now that Batesville’s City Board unanimously approved a variance request following a public hearing.
