ONAWAY – Onaway Area Ambulance Service has the city’s OK to contract for a $74,800 building addition, but needs approval from at least two more townships before it can proceed.

The ambulance service is looking to build a 576-square-foot addition to the south side of its building, adding two separate sleeping quarters for employees, city commissioner and ambulance service board member Bernie Schmeltzer said. The current one-bed sleeping quarters would become a new meeting space, and the project also includes heating and air conditioning and a fire suppression system for the addition.

“Right now we’ve been fortunate,” he said. “We’ve got one full-time personnel right in the area there, who doesn’t have to stay there, and a room for the other ones. But there’s really not room for two, so the best way to do it would be to add on (with) these two bedrooms on the end.”

The project would replace a not-so-great heating system and a broken-down air conditioning system, ambulance service board Chairman Dave Webster said. It also would give male and female employees separate sleeping quarters.

None of the eight local governments represented on the ambulance service board will have to pay more to cover the project cost, as the service has enough set aside to cover the project, Schmeltzer said. Since the project will cost more than $10,000 and isn’t a budgeted expense, the majority of those eight local governments must approve the project.

Onaway is one of three local governments to approve the project so far, with Case Township’s board of trustees voting against, Webster said. Two of the remaining four met Tuesday and two more will meet Thursday, so Webster expects to have a final vote tally before the ambulance service board meets Nov. 18. Construction could be complete before the end of the year.

If the project is approved, the ambulance service still would have the funds to buy another ambulance in case of an accident or breakdown, Webster said.

“Plus, we just bought a brand-new one this year,” he said.

City commissioners approved the project, Schmeltzer said; Mayor Gary Wregglesworth abstained, as he’s a part-time employee of the ambulance service.

In other business:

* unpaid city utility and garbage bills that will be added to property tax bills total more than $23,000, City Manager Joe Hefele said. It’s nearly twice as much as what city water, sewer and garbage customers owed as of November 2014, although the increase represents larger amounts owed rather than more customers with delinquent bills. City commissioners will discuss the issue during their budget workshops in January, likely with an eye to adopting a stricter shut-off policy.

* Hefele said he and city employees have identified potential spots where trees a former city resident wants to donate could be planted in the city’s business district. Now he needs approval from the Michigan Department of Transportation to identify which kind of trees are allowed and whether the department concurs with their placement.

* the city will loan a salt and sand spreader it no longer uses to the Rogers City Department of Public Works. While previously posted for sale, Wregglesworth said Onaway has used Rogers City equipment before, so city commissioners opted to lend the spreader as a cooperative gesture.

* city commissioners approved a resolution backing Four-Ward Northeast Michigan’s drive to create a four-year university in the region. Wregglesworth said he voted for the resolution because he believes more people would attend classes at a university if one were closer to the area than Saginaw Valley State University to the south or Lake Superior State University to the north.

Jordan Travis can be reached via email at jtravis@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688. Follow Jordan on Twitter @jt_alpenanews. Read his blog, A Snowball’s Chance, at www.thealpenanews.com.