Earlier this week, the Jefferson City Council took another step to extend water and sewer services to the Wild Rose Jefferson casino on the northwest corner of US Highway 30 and Iowa Highway 4.

The Council previously approved a contract to JMK Construction of Ames to extend just the water line to the casino location as part of a three infrastructure project for $450,670.  The other two projects are unrelated to the casino utility extensions.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Council approved five agreements to purchase easement rights to extend sewer services from the casino on Highway 30 to the City’s waste water treatment plant by Daubendiek Park, which will also require creating a new lift station to carry that added capacity to the plant.

City Administrator Mike Palmer says the five agreements will cost the City $24,050.  He talks about how the City will pay for the agreements.

“Right now the City will pay for that directly and then as Tax Increment Financing, when we get all of that squared away,  that’ll repay the City for those expenses to get those easements.”

Palmer points out that the City doesn’t own the easements, the private landowners do, and the City has the right to build its extension and to maintain it.

Work has begun on some of those infrastructure improvements, but Palmer notes that they will have to extend sewer services to the casino site by next spring.