General Authority elects officers, hears about ongoing projects

The Franklin General Authority elected officers for 2019 at the panel’s first meeting of the new year on Tuesday.

Tim Dunkle was elected chairman, and the other officers are Caleb Williams, vice chairman; Peter O’Polka, treasurer; and John Eckel, secretary.

“I look forward to working with everybody,” Dunkle said.

Mike Swatzler also took the oath of office as a new member on Tuesday.

In other business, city engineer Al Wodzianski updated the authority on a survey project that looks to turn a right of way at Barrett Flats into an access road for the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

“This will give us all weather road access, which is quite important,” Wodzianski said.

He explained that a portion of the right of way currently being surveyed runs along an old railway bed that begins at Pioneer Cemetery and ends at the treatment plant. The portion closer to the plant has “become saturated by landslides,” Wodzianski said.

Wodzianski detailed a way to remedy the problem but was unsure how to keep the scope of the work small enough so the city doesn’t need to apply for more permits.

“I’d like to see if we can keep it under one acre,” he said.

Wastewater treatment plant supervisor Glenn Brown talked about the SCADA (system control and data acquisition) project that is due to be finished at the plant this month.

“There is some light through the tunnel, but we’re not there yet,” Brown said.

Brown said alarms for the system haven’t arrived, and flooring had to be installed before the project could move forward, but he said the foreman in charge believes the project will be done soon.

The system allows information from various parts of the wastewater system to be accessed from a central location over a fiber optic network.

Kyle Fritz, an engineer with the EADS group that is working with Franklin on multiple wastewater projects, told the panel he has found a contractor that could take on the project of cleaning the city’s wastewater interceptor and televising the lines.

Cleaning the interceptor, where most street debris such as sand and leaves collect, is important for the entire wastewater treatment process, Fritz said.

The contractor will walk the entire length of the interceptor and report back with a bid, Fritz said.

“We’re trying to get as much done in 2019 as possible,” Fritz said.