TONASKET – The Tonasket City Council approved a consulting contract at their meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 10 to develop a Capital Improvement Plan.

John Spencer of Spencer Consulting will be developing the 6-year Capital Improvement Plan for the city, contingent upon the city attorney looking at the contract.

The Consultant Services Contract between the city and Spencer’s Consulting states “the City anticipates the need for a variety of financial, administrative and managerial projects and desires that the Consultant perform services as described herein; and the Consultant agrees to perform the services more specifically described in the Scope of Work, including any addenda thereto as of the effective date of this agreement.”

“I met with Mayor Walter about a month ago about the needs of Tonasket and one was the need for a new Capital Facilities Plan,” Spencer said. “This is an area of expertise for me. I plan to take the 1991 plan, speak to an engineer and update the plan. I would need to rely on the city for any studies that have been done about infrastructure needs. I’m hoping you’ll find my bid to be significantly lower than you’d expect and that’s because I want the business.”

The council also discussed the cleaning up of Bonaparte Creek during their meeting.

“At one point, the tribes have made an offer to pay for the sewer systems, but it doesn’t appear they’re going to now,” Chris Branch, city planner, said. He added that the creek needs to be cleaned up because there are landowners who depend on well water for domestic water.

“Due to the fecal matter, if we don’t show effort to clean up that end of the creek, the state may step in,” Jean Ramsey, council member, said.

Finally, Police Chief Robert Burks told the council that starting in March the department is going to be involved in different programs.

“We’ll have a seatbelt emphasis day, a speeding emphasis day and we’ll be looking into having a day when people can trade in old car seats for new ones,” Burks said.

The next city council meeting will be on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.