{"id":10890,"date":"2023-12-18T09:20:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T14:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=10890"},"modified":"2023-12-18T09:20:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T14:20:51","slug":"city-moves-ahead-with-merit-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/18\/city-moves-ahead-with-merit-upgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"City moves ahead with MERIT upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Decatur is moving forward on replacing the HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) system at the MERIT Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its last meeting, the city’s board of works and safety approved a contract with the Dilling Group, headquartered in Logansport, to have installed, for the sum of $455,000, new boilers, controls and a pump at the former Northwest School building on Dayton Ave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The costs are covered by a state READI grant of $290,000 and $200,000 Adams County has paid the city for a small hunk of land on the northeast corner of the lot on which the MERIT Center is situated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Council on Aging moved into the building well over a year ago and will begin to operate a countywide transportation service starting the first of the year. As part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city and county, the city needs to update the building’s heating\/cooling system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The .7 of an acre of land bought by the county will become the site of a garage to be built by the county to house the transportation service’s vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building, purchased by the city several years ago for $1 from the North Adams Schools system, has 55,000 square feet and most of it is being used by various organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The HVAC system, however, is taking its last breaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The controls on the boilers are not working \u201cand the boilers are running wild,\u201d city Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert told the board at its previous meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Dan Rickord said at the same meeting, \u201cSomething needs to be done. I was out there today and one room was at 60 degrees and another at 80.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new chiller is needed for the system, but it will take months to secure one. So the board has decided to draw up a contract to purchase a chiller before the end of the year to avoid a price hike, then figure out how to pay for it when it arrives next fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANOTHER CONTRACT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board also approved a contract to retain Christopher B. Burke Engineering for another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city pays the firm a sum not to exceed $50,000 annually to provide \u201congoing support to complete the required permit activities and as needed support services to assist the city.\u201d Other services are also provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilities Director Kevin Hackman recommended continuing to use Burke for such services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have had a good relationship with them,\u201d he told the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The City of Decatur is moving forward on replacing the HVAC (heating, ventilation, air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-10890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5BAD3ECF1DAD43C9A3B3A02381D0D4CA.jpg?fit=576%2C257&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}