Heading the agenda when the City Council of Webster City holds its meeting tonight is a measure that would officially hire Snyder & Associates, Ankeny, to design a large-scale reconstruction of the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

This meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 400 Second Street, Webster City.

The matter of replacing or upgrading the city’s aging wastewater treatment plant has been discussed by the Council for years without a decision one way or the other. Over time, the projected cost of both options continued to increase.

The Council was set to ratify an all-new $78.426 million plant designed by Bolton & Menk, Ames, on a new site in the southeast industrial park, when then-newly-hired City Manager John Harrenstein suggested “prudent alternatives to the present plan” should be considered.

A City Council work session in early March 2024 resulted in the firing of Bolton & Menk, and abandonment of that proposal.

Since then, Harrenstein, wastewater plant manager Nick Knowles, and Darin Jacobs, Water Resources Group Leader for Snyder & Associates, have studied a wide range of alternative designs for a new — or significantly-upgraded — wastewater plant.

According to a memorandum dated July 18, 2025, to the Council from Darin Jacobs and Amanda Rodell, both of Snyder & Associates, “a plan has been developed and a Facility Plan amendment submitted to the DNR for review and approval.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources must review and approve the design before issuing a permit for construction to begin.

Tonight, the Council will consider whether to proceed with that design, which has an estimated cost of $1,978,350. Almost half of that — $923,000 — will go toward preliminary design, the work that will actually decide details of the plant’s final footprint.

This is an engineering fee to design, not build, the plant.

Final decisions made during the preliminary and final design processes will determine the plant’s ultimate cost.

— Other matters on the agenda are of a routine nature, including confirmation of plans for the 2025 chip seal paving program, setting a firm date for residential trick-or-treating in Webster City, a second reading of a reduction in the speed limit on Clark Mollenhoff Drive, and plans to add a new stop sign on Hospital Drive at Fair Meadow Drive.

— The Council is also expected to formally adopt an ordinance that would grant the Hamilton County Fair Board $10,000 each year from taxes collected from visitors staying in Webster City hotels.

The measure was unanimously ratified by a vote at the City Council’s meeting on July 7.