The City of Ashland Board of Aldermen met for only 13 minutes Monday evening and spent $55,000.

The expenditure was an updated contracted with their engineering firm, Allstate Consultants, as required by the Department of Natural Resources.

The contract was required as the previous contract was signed in 2011. The purpose of the contract is for the engineering on the city’s new waste water treatment plant.

Yes, the same plant that Mayor Gene Rhorer has been trying to get a construction permit to build for more than a year.

“This is why I continually have said time is money,” Rhorer said after the meeting. “The longer we have been delayed, the more expensive everything gets.”

Rhorer said he did not blame Allstate for raising their rates on the contract. “If I put out a bid or a contract in my business,” Rhorer said, “that price might not be good in six months, it just depends on whether or not the price of equipment has gone up.”

~ Find out more in today’s Journal ~

By Bruce Wallace