A two-year-old dispute over a damaged water line was finally resolved during last week’s North Judson Town Council meeting. HRP Construction had been asking for more than $14,000, to cover the cost of repairing a line it damaged while working on the town’s water project in 2019. But figuring out who was responsible and how much money should be given was complicated.
HRP said the line its crews hit wasn’t in the plans they were given. Commonwealth Engineers, which oversaw the project, initially disputed that, saying that the line was in the plans but just a few feet off. But photographs recently shared with Commonwealth and town officials reportedly showed that line that got hit was completely separate.
In any case, Council Member Matt Brewer felt that HRP’s repair cost was too high, especially considering the amount of help it got from the town. “For what they did, I don’t see $14,000, in a couple caps and digging the hole and $700 worth of cement,” he said. “I just don’t understand. Using our pump . . . I wouldn’t give them more than $10,000 is what I would say. That would just be my opinion. I mean, there’s a pump that ran, that they even have their pump running and charging you man hours, and it was our pump.”
Commonwealth estimated that the use of the town’s equipment and labor, both on the repair and on other parts of the water project, ended up saving HRP about $3,500, which HRP disputed.
But the delay in HRP and Commonwealth coming to an understanding on the cause of the incident may have a financial impact on North Judson. The project’s contingency money may no longer be available, which would force the town to dip into its water operating fund.
That drew frustration from Council Member Jane Ellen Felchuk, while Council President John Rowe simply wanted to get the dispute over with.
“We can’t go backwards,” Rowe said. “You want to go backwards? You want to go to 2019?”
“No!” Felchuk replied. “I’m saying because they weren’t aggressive enough and we closed this thing out, there’s no money available in the project.”
“We can’t do anything about it,” Rowe said. “It’s over with.”
After discussing the issue for almost 45 minutes, council members voted to pay HRP $11,000 for the extra work, and the company accepted.
