Water and sewer lines are coming to the Avenues after all. In a four to two vote Tuesday night, the Bethel City Council reversed its rejection of a grant to extend the piped system after council member Fritz Charles moved to put the vote back on the agenda. The project failed in a tied vote at last month's meeting, with Charles out sick.
Many spoke in favor of the Avenues project, including Bethel Fire Chief Bill Howell, who said that it would bring fire hydrants to an area that needs them.
“Whether you look at it from a fire protection perspective, a convenience perspective, a health perspective, just efficiency of city operations, from just about any perspective, it just makes good sense,” Howell said.
Howell reminded the Council that in recent decades, multiple devastating fires like the Kilbuck School and Pentecostal Church fires all took place in that neighborhood.
Over the next two years, the city plans to install water and sewer pipes from Third to Seventh Avenue, along Main Street. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Administration will provide a third of the cost in a grant and loan the rest to the city.
Council members Fritz Charles, Leif Albertson, Mitchell Forbes, and Perry Barr voted in favor, leaving Vice Mayor Raymond "Thor" Williams and Carole Jung Jordan voting against. Mayor Fred Watson was absent from the meeting.
