West Cook News

At its Jan. 9 meeting the Village of Brookfield board dealt with some unexpected issues and costs related to the veterans memorial fountain project.

The first of these issues was the recent discovery that the electrical supply for the fountain would not be sufficient. The board was told this was overlooked because the new fountain is replacing an older fountain, and it was not clarified that the new, bigger fountain would require more electrical power and facilities than the previous fountain had.

The trustees authorized an almost $38,000 contract with an electrical company to rewire and install the system. The trustees decided to forgo the typical bidding process and find a company to do it right away so that it did not delay the project.

The other issue that arose was an unanticipated sewer problem. According to the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, when contractors opened the sewer it was in worse condition than they thought. The board decided to take this time while the fountain construction was paused for the winter to reline the sewer to extend its useful life. The sewer is probably 100 years old. This will cost initially $16,200 and up to $140,000 for the new lining.

“So the earlier item was the result of a mistake. This was an unforeseen condition," said village manager Timothy Wiberg. "But as we started, we knew we had to do some sewer work with the new fountain. We knew there was a brick sewer that ran underneath the fountain area. What we discovered when the land was disturbed and opened up, was the condition of the sewer was not what we hoped for.”

The original estimated cost of the project was around $650,000 and it was expected to be finished and operational by May of 2023.