City's "old water tower" continues to be an asset

Although it’s been in service for more than half a century, the City of Holton water storage standpipe — the “old water tower” — continues to perform a valuable service for the community, the Holton City Commission noted during its first meeting of 2017.

During the commission’s regular meeting on Tuesday — held a day later than usual due to the New Year’s Day observation on Monday — commissioners approved a $10,162.85 payment to Utility Service Company of Pittsburg for the company’s annual maintenance contract on the 300,000-gallon standpipe that city officials esti­mated has been in service since the late 1940s.

After the payment — part of the commission’s list of budget appro­priations for the first few days of 2017 — was questioned by Com­missioner Tim Morris, Holton City Manager Kerwin McKee and City Clerk Teresa Riley reminded Mor­ris why the standpipe, which now serves as a supplement to the city’s 750,000-gallon elevated storage tank, built in 1995, is still a neces­sity for the city.

“It does add a little bit of extra storage,” McKee said. “It does add water pressure, too, having two tanks.”

Riley said Utility Service’s an­nual contract on the standpipe in­cludes “all the maintenance,” in­cluding interior and exterior in­spections and painting of the stand­pipe, inside and out, when needed. McKee said Utility Service, which also painted the larger tower in the summer of 2014, last painted the standpipe within the last decade.

Having two water towers is also a boon to the city when one of the towers needs to be taken out of service for painting, McKee added.

“We can drain one and work on the other, which is really nice,” he said. “What are you going to do if you don’t have two? We really need two. When you paint either one of the towers, you have to have a cure time for the paint, which could be, depending on a lot of different factors, two to three weeks.”

If the standpipe’s condition does deteriorate beyond the scope of Utility Service’s maintenance con­tract, McKee said the city will “probably look at options” for its repair or replacement.

Both towers are located within a block of each other, in the vicinity of Sixth Street and Idaho Avenue.

In other business on Monday, McKee told commissioners that while the commission chamber’s antique grandfather clock — a presence at City Hall for the past decade — has not worked in sev­eral months, the old clock will likely be back in service soon.

The seven-day regulator clock, estimated to be more than 130 years old, was a gift from the late Mildred Francis to the city in the fall of 2006 and is notable for its painted inscription of “Standard Time” with a reverse “N” on the front. The clock had been stored in the old Francis building at 424 Pennsylvania Ave. for nearly 125 years before it was moved to City Hall.

However, the clock’s pendulum has remained still for several months, and McKee said one clock repairman contacted by the city about repairing the clock “didn’t know what to do” with it.

Another clock repairman, War­ren Deal of Topeka, was contacted for “a second opinion,” McKee said, and Deal was able to identify the problem with the clock. He added that Deal reportedly ordered a part to repair the clock and would return “after the first of the year” to finish the repair.

“It’s difficult to find someone who can work on a clock that old,” McKee said.