Near the end of this week’s four-hour Pella City Council meeting, multiple council members expressed frustration with a construction contract change.

They voted 4-2 to approve a resolution with Erickson Construction of over $55,000 for an electrical switch at the new water treatment plant. Councilmembers Tony Bokhoven and Larry Peterson were vocal about the cost increase, and said they weren’t happy the city had to foot the bill on the switch, which was not listed in the specifications of the bidding process.

The council members voting yes for the measure and Public Works Director Denny Buyert both said at the meeting the switch is a DNR requirement and needed to be purchased to keep the water supply plan project ongoing.

Before the vote was taken, a few council members mentioned they would look into ways to improve engineer’s estimates to avoid large contingency spending on infrastructure projects.