KNOX — The Knox Town Board now has the funds it needs to move forward with its transfer-station overhaul following a unanimous authorization by the board to borrow up to $800,000.

Knox Supervisor Russ Pokorny told The Enterprise this week that the project should come in below that figure, and he doesn’t expect the bond to require a tax increase. The town recently finished paying off a bond for a town hall project using $80,000 annual payments that are still budgeted, but now will be used for the transfer-station project.

Pokorny said that sticking at the $80,000-per-year pace will mean the town is paying off the bond over 12 years at 4.7 percent interest, which he called a “good rate.” 

With the money secured and a request for proposals ready to go out soon, Pokorny estimated that construction might begin in the fall. 

Board member Karl Pritchard, who runs an auto shop in town, “sees a lot of local people, and he thinks that people are going to be thrilled to see some shovels in the ground,” Pokorny said. “I certainly will be.”

The 40-year-old, two-tier transfer station was determined by Nolan Engineering to be unsafe and beyond repair in the fall of 2022, sending the town board into a sprint to figure out a way to redesign the station while also making sure there was a minimal interruption in service. 

After settling on a temporary set-up of two dumpsters and a job trailer, the board opted to keep the longer-term redesign simple, abandoning the two-tier concept in favor of a pavilion and some extra amenities for workers. 

“It’s going to be a cement pad with a pavilion over it in place of the hole in the ground,” where the hopper used to be, Pokorny told The Enterprise this week. 

Inside the pavilion, Pokorny said, the town will install septic and potable water storage tanks, avoiding the need for a well with a “pump-out situation” that collects and filters rainwater.

“We’re also going to have the two existing roll-offs that are self-compressing, and they’ll be parked under the pavilion, and they’ll be used for cardboard and co-mingle,” he said. “And then we’re going to have a third compressor, which we have to buy, which is going to hook into the roll-offs that we already own.”

Pokorny said the request-for-proposals notice will be published in the Aug. 15 edition of The Enterprise, and then businesses will have until Sept. 10 to make their bids. The process will be managed by Lamont Engineering.

“Lamont has told us that we have at least five parties that are interested in reviewing the RFP,” he said, “including a couple of local people.”