Finally after a year of fighting and bickering, the Board of Supervisors of the East County Water Control District agreed to construct a new office building on East County Lane. The decision was made at the ECWCD’s monthly meeting on April 18.

Commissioners Mike Welch, David Deetscreek, Mike Bonacolta and Desmond Barrett all voted to move the project along.

But ECWCD Supervisor and Chairman Nate Stout voted no. He said there was still a contract on another building, one in which the ECWCD is using under a rental lease on Williams Rd. in front of Lakes Park, and that the contract should be settled first. The rental lease ends in December, but could be renewed.

ECWCD Manager David Lindsay told the group that the new building would have a larger meeting room to hold its monthly meetings. At present the board meets at a golf party building on Williams Rd.

The building that the ECWCD is renting has two stories and workers occupy the first and second floors of one side of the building.

Lindsay said the new meeting room would have partitions that could be moved to make more access to the public. He showed a rough plan of the building.

The next step is for a plan to be designed and an architect to come up with an architectural site plan.

The building will cost the ECWCD $850,000 and a motion was made that it not cost more. Additional fees are for a document showing a site plan and fees for planners.

The building, known as the I&E Building, that the ECWCD staff now occupies and has for the past several months after the crammed trailers they worked in were moved, is in foreclosure and is the hands of a bank.

The issue of a new building had become so controversial that words have been exchanged between members at meetings over the past year. Lindsay was even accused of preferring the I&E Building, but told The Citizen he was well pleased with the planned construction of a new building at the ECWCD site. A new building for the crew that maintains the canals, water structures and several culverts in Lehigh will soon open and the present old shed will be torn down.

The new office building will contain 6,500 square feet of working space.

The vote to spend up to $6,500 for the design also received a 4-1 vote, with Stout voting against it for the same reason, he said. “We just need to settle that other contract first.”

In other action, Union Local 79 informed the supervisors that the membership had agreed to ask for no raises during the next fiscal year and Supervisor Barrett praised the union for its decision.