ABOUT $180 THOUSAND CHOPPED FROM BUILDING PROJECT

December 7, 2018 Dick Mangrum
In about 90 minutes yesterday, an Oconee Joint Regional Sewer Authority committee cut $181 thousand from the contractor’s budget to renovate the administrative and operations facilities of the wastewater treatment plant at Seneca. At meeting’s end, Westminster representative Brian Ramey said the cuts were “still quite shy” of what Westminster and Walhalla representatives would be comfortable with. The committee yesterday looked to Austin Eckles of Hogan Construction for ways to cut. And Eckles came through with several items that Chris Eleazer, JRSA executive director, considers “wants” versus “needs.” The progress made by the committee yesterday will be relayed to the full JRSA board during a special meeting next week. At that time, Ramey says, it’ll be up to the full board whether to order further cuts or dig deeper to finance a project that commissioners had envisioned would be capped at $1.5 million. Before the cuts that were recommended yesterday, the estimate had jumped to $1.9 million