Neillsville City Council Has Another Lengthy Discussion on Sewer Hook Up for New Hospital Facility
Thursday, August 15th, 2019 -- 12:09 PM
-The Neillsville City Council had another lengthy conversation regarding Marshfield Medical Center’s new facility in Neillsville hooking up to the city’s sewer system.This topic has been ongoing for some time, but recently heated up again at the City Council meeting at the beginning of July when Marshfield Medical Center-Neillsville asked the city to own and maintain a new sewer main to the new facility. The city had already approved the sewer extension for the hospital, but that was before when MMC was building the new facility themselves and they would have owned and maintained the extension. But, an agreement was never signed and, since then, they have become involved with Marshfield Clinic Health System. The state would like the city to own and maintain the extension now as they don’t want the line on their right of way. The city attorney stated if the city were to approve it, they would have to rescind a resolution passed in 1987 that would limit sewer hook-ups to property owners with the city limits. Then during the meeting at the end of July, the council did pass an amended resolution allowing the hospital to hook up to a new sewer main. During the meeting on Tuesday, there was a lengthy discussion on the item as the council was presented with a draft agreement between the city and MMC-Neillsville.
There was discussion on who would maintain what part of the infrastructure. They also had questions regarding what would happen if a “big ticket” item failed and needed to be replaced. The main point the city made to hospital and project officials is that they wanted to make sure that the taxpayers of Neillsville would be protected as the hospital chose to build their facility outside of Neillsville. MMC-Neillsville continued to stress that they want the same goal and a good working relationship with the City of Neillsville as they continue to move forward on this project, with the hope of it being built and opened sooner rather than later to reduce their capital in the old hospital building. The item was first brought up and discussed during the Public Works portion of the meeting and since no action was taken, it was not discussed again during the regular Common Council meeting.
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