City soon to have water shut-off power for water ban violators

The location of the city’s new library is still up in the air, but there has been progress, it was reported at Thursday night’s City Council meeting.

In February of last year council decided to put the building in the city’s Seavy Street Park. This past winter, the city learned there were funds available from the state for the complex, which were ultimately approved by the legislature but not funded in the state budget in June.

About a month before, the city learned indirectly that library officials didn’t like the proposed building location because of its proximity to the railroad tracks and overhead power lines.

A state library official visited several potential sites in the city with a contingent of local representatives last week, councilman Keith Harrison said Tuesday night.

Now the city is waiting to hear back which site or sites that official would approve the library being located at, Harrison said.

The city is still hoping to convince the state legislature to fund the construction, said Mayor Robert Belisle. If that doesn’t happen, the city will be at the mercy of the county’s time schedule for construction, which means if the library building breaks ground and all of a sudden the crews must be diverted to emergency public works projects, the library building could be stalled for a period of time, Harrison explained.

In other business, council approved the first reading of an ordinance that will allow the city to enforce the state’s outdoor watering ban.

With the ordinance on the books, the city will have the power to shut off the water of people or businesses who violate the watering restrictions and then require a bond from those persons or entities before water service is restored.

City Attorney Andrew Whalen explained that without water service, such buildings would have to be vacated since city ordinances require all buildings to have water service as a condition of them being occupied.

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