An amendment in its contract with Fleis & Vandenbrink for more than $130,000 in additional engineering fees was approved last week by the Northport Village Council.

Council members March 20 approved additional costs of $132,400 for the firm that designed the Northport/Leelanau Township sewer project. The moneys for additional services and administrative cost will come from a contingency fund built into the project budget. It will not increase the cost of the project overall, village officials maintain.

The additional costs are attributed to time spent defending lawsuits spawned as a result of the project and individual attention given homeowners regarding lateral connections and construction oversight.

“They’ve spent up to three hours with each homeowner (discussing lateral connections) and have had an observer on every construction crew,” Clerk Laura Weiss said.

In somewhat related business during the hour-long meeting, council members approved an application for a state grant to develop and implement a well-head projection plan as suggested by Mike Stiffler of the state Department of Environmental Quality. As part of the Wellhead Protection Program, communities delineate land area contributing drinking water to their public wells, identify potential contaminants within that area, and implement management activities to protect the water supply.

In other business during the open forum portion at the outset of the meeting, John Eggert of the Leelanau Children’s Center told the council that the playground for the center, located on High School, extended into three vacant lots behind the facility. The lots are owned by the Village of Northport.

The organization is looking to redesign the playground and would like permission to leave the existing playground equipment where it is currently location; some of which is on the previously-mentioned lots.