KIMBERLY—The City of Kimberly has decided to go in a different direction on a grant project that has drug on for nearly four years.

Last Monday night the city council announced its plan to consider a new bid on a project to build a storm shelter in Kimberly. The safe house project originally went to Mark Burns, who owns Dean + Tyler + Burns Architecture. He met with the council in July, which resulted in a somewhat heated conversation between he and Kimberly Mayor Bob Ellerbrock.

That exchange centered around the project’s ever-growing timeline, which dates back to October of 2014. Burns and Ellerbrock had grappled with different aspects of the project, including where the structure’s bathroom should be located.

“We wanted to be able to access the bathrooms from outside, but not have them all the way to the inside [of the building], that way they would serve a dual purpose,” said Ellerbrock at the council meeting in July.

With Burns now off the job, Kimberly is taking bids and exploring new options like increasing the building’s seating capacity from 50 people to over 100 people. Based on what was said at Monday night’s meeting, the grant project could eventually check out at $103,000.

In other news, the Kimberly City Council:

•discussed the possibility of posting street lights in the Doss Ferry subdivision.

•accepted a bid of $1,360 for a 2005 Ford pickup.

•moved Kimberly’s next meeting from Monday, Oct. 8 to Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 6:30 p.m. That rescheduling is due to the city’s observance of Columbus Day.