Project reveals village doesn’t own site of its lift station

The Grafton Village Board on Monday approved spending as much as $69,000 to hire Strand Associates of Milwaukee to oversee upgrades to the village’s Ninth Avenue lift station — a facility that some officials were surprised to learn is on land the village doesn’t own.

The village also doesn’t have an easement on the property, Utility Director Brecken Gries told the Board of Public Works last week.

Gries told the board that the village sold the property to Portal Inc. many years ago for $1.

The transaction happened so long ago that “no one who was part of it is with the village anymore,” she said.

Since the village learned it didn’t own the land on which the lift station and a municipal well are located, officials have been working to get the property back, Gries said, adding that Portal has asked market value for the land.

Trustee Russ MacRae, a member of the board, asked if the village anticipated any issues upgrading the lift station since it doesn’t own the property.

Gries said that work has been done on the lift station in the past so she doesn’t anticipate any issues now.

Village Administrator Tim Wellnitz said in an interview that the village and Portal officials are working diligently to correct the issue.

“The lines got drawn in the wrong spot,” he said, noting the transaction occurred in the early 1990s.

“I don’t know all the details,” he said, “but obviously that (selling land village facilities are on) wasn’t the intention.

“It’s one of those things you don’t expect. We’re in the process of fixing it.”

The fix, he said, is expected to be a corrected legal description and “redrawing the lines.”

The Ninth Avenue lift station upgrades will be done by Sabel Mechanical, which has been awarded a contract to do the work for $389,000.

The project is important because it will allow the village to supply sewer and water to developments on the village’s north side, such as the Stonewall Farms, Hawk’s Ridge, Shady Hollow and Tamarack Hollow subdivisions.

“With the northern development, we need this work,” Gries said.

Strand is familiar with the work, Gries noted, because it was the design engineer for the project.

Its work on the project will include holding a preconstruction meeting, onsite observation, attendance at testing of the new equipment and record drawings of the completed work.

The village budgeted $496,000 for the project, Gries said, but the bids are for a total $389,000.

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