The Durant City Council unanimously approved three items on the agenda in a short, 20-minute meeting Wednesday afternoon at Durant City Hall.

Mayor Jerry Tomlinson, City Manager Jim Dunegan and council members Bobby Story and Leon Sherrer were present for the meeting.

The council first approved a contract that was previously awarded at a Nov. 13 special council meeting for a utility, waste and water line relocation for the construction of an overpass that will connect South Ninth Avenue with Highway 69/75.

Assistant City Manager Ralph Houser informed the council that the contract was simply not ready when the bid was awarded. Now that it was, it needed to be approved.

The second item on the agenda was for the drilling of a test water well which would serve as an emergency water source in the event of problems with the Blue River or water treatment plant.

The test well is to be drilled at a site near the Big Lots water tower on the south side of town, and is approximated to cost somewhere around $30,000 depending on the depth that is necessary to drill. After a brief discussion, the motion carried unanimously.

Finally, Durant Fire Chief Steven Dow requested a change order on the construction of the new fire station on North First Avenue.

The change order was necessary for additional items to be installed at the fire station and was not unexpected by the council.

“On most construction jobs, most people figure on a 10-percent adjustment for change orders, because you can’t think of everything in the contract,” Dow said.

“We got into some things like the soil not compacting like it was supposed to when we were doing the dirt work. The contract was only required to supply six inches of base rock to go under the concrete. We ended up going 10 inches to 12 inches just to get compaction. We’re liable for that addition. That’s why anything that we do a change to, we have to go through council action to do a change order.”

The change order included 25 items that were needed in construction of the new fire station. The total amount of the change order was $27,525, bringing the updated total for the entire project to nearly $1.9 million.The council again unanimously approved the request.