The City Council has reluctantly agreed to spend $470,000 on consultants to study rehabilitating an aging part of the Grayson Power Plant — a project that the city may ultimately be unable to afford.
Earlier this month, the council voted 4-1, with Councilman Ara Najarian dissenting, to hire four consultants to study the feasibility of repowering part of the power plant where the city burns its landfill gas.
The Grayson Power Plant has three boiler units that are inefficient and increasingly expensive to maintain, according to a city report. But officials have been deferring maintenance in order to study whether to repower the plant altogether, demolish and rebuild, or do nothing.
However, some council members weren’t sure if they wanted to pay for such an expensive study if the city may not be able to afford to fix the problem.
“I just feel a little uneasy with that amount to give us something we may reject anyway based on our financial situation,” Najarian said, noting that the city was already weighing a water rate increase because of a lack of funds to pay for other capital improvements.