Durand votes on Vinewood pump bill; Sept. 3 discharge unexplained

Durand's council is being asked tonight to pay a bill for work that is already finished: an emergency repair by Kerr Pump at the Vinewood Lift Station, the pump station that moves the city's sewage through the collection system. The agenda the city emailed out for the 6:30 p.m. Monday meeting does not say what failed, when it failed, what the repair cost, or who authorized the work before the invoice reached the council.

That matters more than a routine invoice would, because of the date on a separate record. The Current reported earlier this month that state records show it was Durand — not Owosso — that reported a raw sewage discharge on Sept. 3. The city has not published anything connecting the two, and nothing in the agenda does either. It is a question the council can answer tonight in public, and one ratepayers have a direct stake in: the sewer system is funded by the people who pay Durand's utility bills, and the Kerr Pump bill lands on the same ledger.

A lift station is the pump that pushes wastewater uphill when gravity can't carry it to the next line or to the treatment plant. When one fails, the sewage behind it has to go somewhere. Whether that is what happened at Vinewood in early September is exactly what the agenda does not say.

This is the second time in three days the desk has had to note the same gap. As The Current reported Sept. 19, Monday's agenda carries no dollar figure on any of its money items: not the Kerr Pump invoice, not the Talon Incident Management System the police department wants to buy, not the Amtrak lease extension's term or rent, and not the total of the 218 bills listed as #60198-60415. The agenda also includes a mayoral appointment to the Downtown Development Authority board without naming the appointee, and a discussion item identified only as "Top Shelf Request - Fans."

Under the charter amendment Durand voters will decide Nov. 3 — approved for the ballot by the council on July 20, when all seven members were present — the city manager's spending limit would rise to $5,000. Purchases above the current limit are what come to the council for a vote, which is why an emergency repair authorized in the field still has to be ratified after the fact.

What happens next: the council meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. The desk has asked the city for the Kerr Pump invoice amount, the date and nature of the Vinewood failure, the name of the official who authorized the emergency work, and whether the city's Sept. 3 discharge report to the state involved that lift station. We will report the amounts and the answers when the minutes and the invoice are released, and we will note it if they are not.