Amid protests, project delayed

After meeting with protesters, Seneca’s utilities director says his city will wait one more week before starting work to convert a former school into the city’s new Light and Water complex. The first work begun yesterday morning came to an abrupt halt when protesters from neighborhood told workers to stop. “We didn’t know this was even going to happen. Everyone had heard there were going to be offices for the Light and Water,” Adams subdivision resident Sandra Gray said while speaking yesterday from the site of the former Kellett Elementary. Gray said she and her neighbors had thought the project was being confined to offices only and did not realize until recently that the project is to include the storage of trucks, pipe, transformers and other equipment. Nearby residents are worried about the potential effect on their home values. They got a one-hour meeting yesterday afternoon, and afterward Seneca Light and Water Director Bob Faires said the work is going to be delayed one week. “There will have to be some more dialogue and some more, I’ll call it, get togethers and discussions. And they’re (the homeowners) are up for that, too,” Faires told 96.3/WGOG NEWS last night. He called the one-hour meeting “spirited, but not ugly.”