By John Leggett

The Courier-Herald

The Buckley City Council went behind closed doors to discuss a land transfer with Puget Sound Energy, a deal that met with unanimous approval.

PSE was offering various parcels of land along the White River in exchange for the city reclaiming full responsibility of the old dump site near the Marion Grange on Sumner-Buckley Highway, which was closed to public use in the mid-1970s.

&#8220It was basically a land-for-risk deal, which worked for us because the city of Buckley was essentially on the hook for any problems that might arise from that dump site anyway,” said Buckley City Administrator David Schmidt.

The city also elected to amend its city budget slightly to accommodate immediate contractual payments that must be made to Rodarte Construction Inc. for its work on the Main Street and Ryan Road projects. &#8220What we did was move some money around, which will be replaced as soon as we get some of the $1.5 million we have coming from the state in grants,” said Schmidt.

The city approved a bid by Gray and Osborne to provide limited construction management services for the recently-bid Foothills Trail extension project, which runs from the Armory to the White River.

While the city workers will be taking care of as much of the actual inspection and labor as possible, it will pay Gray and Osborne $25,380 for the balance of the scope of work, which includes such items as preparation, review and circulation.

Although the early inspection phase of the Main Street and Ryan Road projects is under way, Schmidt said there are plenty of nuts and bolts to be worked out, especially as far as Main Street aesthetics are concerned.

Schmidt said the original lights put in were not satisfactory, because they did not include electrical outlets for Christmas lights, which had been contractually agreed upon. &#8220PSE is responsible for reordering those new lights and they have ordered them,” Schmidt said. &#8220Orders like this usually take six to eight weeks, so hopefully we will have the right lights installed by Christmas.”

Other concerns regarding the beatification of Main Street were ordering planters and benches to be placed along the sidewalks of Main Street. &#8220The City Council still has to make up its mind which ones they want to order and according to the mayor there was some interest by some of shop owners along Main Street to help decide what would look good and even help with the funding of the planters and benches,” Schmidt said.

Additionally, after a public hearing that lasted approximately half an hour, a motion to oppose Initiative 933 was approved by the city council.

John Leggett can be reached at jleggett@courierherald.com.