The Constantine Village Council has decided to draw upon the experience and expertise of a former trustee and past chairman of its Sewer Ad Hoc Committee as it deals with sewer-related issues.
In a unanimous action Monday evening (January 16th), the council approved the appointment of Scott Chiddister to serve on the committee.
Trustee Gary Mathers, chairman of the Sewer Ad Hoc Committee, suggested that former Trustee Scott Chiddister be added to the committee and the move was approved unanimously by the Constantine Village Council.
Trustee Gary Mathers, the current committee chairman, recommended the addition of Chiddister because of his expertise as an engineer and his experience while serving on the committee in past years while a member of the council – points that Mathers reiterated during a post-meeting interview with the River Country Journal. (Gary Mathers audio clip - :28)
The committee and the council are continuing to deal with groundwater infiltration of the sewer system as well as financial challenges related to a 55 percent increase in the rate charged by the City of Three Rivers to process sewage piped from the village to the Clean Water Plant (wastewater treatment plant) in Three Rivers. The rate hike, implemented in June of last year, is costing the village approximately $30,000 a month. The village has been absorbing the additional cost, but the expense is draining its sewer fund, prompting a rate study by Fleis & VandenBrink Engineering to look at ways to address the situation, including an interim sewer rate increase to help stop the bleeding.
Jon Moxey, an engineer with Grand Rapids-based Fleis & VandenBrink, was on hand for Monday’s meeting and shared sewer rate study information showing the impact of interim rates on sewer customers. He also presented water rate study information outlining capital improvements funding level impacts on user rates.
There was some discussion about the rate information shared by Moxey, including conversation about “incremental” rate increases, but there was no action by the council.
During the interview, Mathers commented on last year’s sewer rate increase by the City of Three Rivers and said, “We haven’t passed that on to residents yet, or really come up with new rates to pass it on” and noted that the village has been absorbing the added cost. He said, “Our fund balance was in pretty good shape so we’ve been able to absorb that.” He added, however, that “It’s beginning to hurt and we have to look at some issues there. What’s our options?”
Jonathan Moxey of Fleis & VandenBrink Engineering shared information regarding the impact of water and sewer rates on customers during Monday's Constantine Village Council meeting.
Mathers said that Fleis & VandenBrink has “done studies and we’ve come up with five options that we’re considering now in committee and that’s going to be something we bring up real soon – that, along with the rates, to see we can handle these additional rates we’re receiving from Three Rivers.”
Mathers noted that the village has a contract with Three Rivers and said, “We’re looking at that document to see if there’s any room for negotiation. We’ll be asking them to sit down to the table with us and discuss – and that’s just one of the options that’s out there for us.”
Mathers and Village Manager Mark Honeysett talked about enlisting an attorney to assist with legal questions.
Mathers said, “Because of the bleeding of the sewer rates, we are going to consider some type of an interim process here, probably within the next meeting or two, hopefully next meeting, where we can stop some of the fund balance from shrinking.” (Gary Mathers audio clip – :41)
Fleis & VandenBrink shared water and sewer rate study information through a PowerPoint presentation during the council meeting on December 19th.
In addition to Mathers, the Sewer Ad Hoc Committee – now expanded with the addition of Chiddister – includes Trustees Willie Harder and Sarah Moore.
To hear the entire interview with Gary Mathers – conducted by Bruce Snook of the River Country Journal – click here (6:11 – 5.66 MB).
Many thanks to the Council for their unanimous support of this appointment. I’ll do my best to assist, support, help provide options to the challenges ahead on this multi-faceted opportunity in front of us.
Why doesn’t Contantine look into hooking up to the White Pigeon Sanitary System? Nothing like a little competition when negotiating with Three Rivers.
That’s actually a very fair and good question. Actually, this was another option that I asked that we consider about 10 yrs ago BEFORE we spent another $1.7 million to fix the existing conveyance system but wasn’t supported. However, rebuilding/renovating our plant (at that time) seemed the more viable alternative, and there was no support from the other board members for either.
That being said, moving forward to present day there’s a bit more to think through with such an approach, which includes;
1) You still have the debt for the balance of the $1.3 million conveyance system via 1995 design PLUS the $1.7 million fix to that system. That debt doesn’t go away….we still pay for it.
2) You have to factor the cash outlay for another conveyance system….now maybe one might minimize that IF some of the pumps and such could be used, but I still gotta envision is at least a 7 figure additional debt to take on on top of the balance of the other two debts/ bonds mentioned in 1) above. I don’t see that as an attractive option without some time of payback or longer term incentives to offset this.
3) What do you really gain? You still have to work out a service agreement…there still would have to be some sort of financial obligation we’d have to kick in to use the capital equipment of their plant….after all their citizens paid for that–you don’t expect them to let us use that for free, right? It’d have to be some sort of lump sum payment or a multiplier. TR made sense with such an arrangement (on paper) back in 1995. However, since then they did a $7 million overhaul to that plant to replace key equipment and then more recently another several million in improvement which we also pay for via in our bills plus the multiplier. My contention today is that the capital improvements thru our sewer bill increases over the years have replaced much of the key equipment in the TR plant thru sewer rates (not property taxes) so in my mind the 1.12 multiplier is a bit excessive with the current arrangement…kinda like double dipping. We wouldn’t have that situation with WP….we’d kinda be back to square one. And you are still tying a key piece of our village’s growth and viability in the hands of another board. Again, their board could raise our rates….we have no direct voting power to put folks in office or remove them that set the rates to our village that then gets passed on to us or bankrupt our village.
4) I’m not completely convinced that they could take on our waste..it would have to be evaluated…..they probably couldn’t back when the pipeline was initially built because we had some pretty difficult industrial waste from two industries that are on the opposite ends of the extreme for treating. Now since then, both have spent money on pre-treatment, but items 1 thru 3 alone at least from my vantage point would seem very cost prohibitive upfront with really no apparent gain in terms of cost control of rate or controlling our overall destiny for any type of residential or business/industrial growth.
That’s just my opinion based on those assumptions…if new factors, data, or technology are available that obsoletes those assumptions, then so be it….., hopefully that answers the question (and it was a fair and good question at that).
Congratulations…!!! Scott, I want to be the first to congratulate both you for signing up for our Sewer Ad Hoc committee and also the Council for unanimously voting to appoint you!!! Your comments were so knowledgeable (and I admit it.. so ‘far over my head”) earlier about our sewer issues, I know you really are very intelligent and we I feel we really NEED you!!! Remember earlier I told you “write a letter” to the editor urging citizens to get more involved? This is even one step better! (I’d dearly love to cover one of those Sewer Ad Hoc committee meetings.) In fact, I tried to help Gary Mathers. Rick Cordes and I both took photos of the 11 Power Point slides Jon Moxie & assoc. presented on the water/sewer issues. (I asked Gary if he wanted ‘em for your ad hoc committee and he brightened and said “you bet I do!” lol) Anyhow, I guess it’s a ‘see saw’living in Constantine… One minute the Village gets this horrendous 55% rate increase from TR, then the next we’re on top of the world with the fact we’re possibly getting a new business in the old Rexam building (and 75+ jobs!) I personally like the idea of refurbishing the old Constantine sewer plant. I’m just afraid people will revolt if they raise these rates and some of them will just “give up and leave!” Raising ‘em “in increments” seems to be the route the Council was thinking of going at the last meeting. If people would go to these Council meetings it would be most helpful. (I like all the Council members and I find Honeysett very fair!) They listen intently to people. (enuff said) angieb
Angie,
I’m not sure if it should be congrats or condolences (perhaps a bit of both), but thanks just the same. We have many intelligent people already on the committee and the Council, so its going to be a collective effort to arrive at options, and I think the majority of the Trustees we have on board will make an intelligent decisions if the committee can collectively give them the best available options to choose from. I’m just one more person lending a hand.
That being said, I don’t want folks to be disillusioned to think that there are some cost free options out there. I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one. In fact, don’t be surprised if the right direction long term isn’t actually more expensive short term. I did say we would work to present best available options–not no cost options.
We haven’t allowed ourselves to be dealt a very good hand. We all share in the responsibility for being where we are…every one of us that let this happen back in the mid 90′s and those that allowed the direction to get more expensive in 2000 timeframe when the writing was clearly on the wall. Its not like the second go around that the facts weren’t laid on the table–very few folks were willing to get involved. So if folks are looking for who to blame…we all need to perhaps pull out a mirror. But this is not the time for blame…its a time for coming together and figuring what’s our best option…anything outside of that is simply noise, and a meaningless distraction.
The incremental increases is NOT a new concept. This is actually a comparatively smaller increase when you consider years ago, TR actually had a major $7 million plant overhaul…and we had I believe a 5 year incremental price increase (I believe 2 of those years were double digit increases). Considering the cash outlay of this recent increase is 1/3 of the previous one (and the inflation factor) this one (albeit still very painful) is minute by comparison.
Be patient with the committee and the Council if some of this ends up closed session…. I can’t speak for the Council or the Committee today, but the topic on the table when I chaired this committee years ago we too had to be in closed session…its not so much that it wouldn’t be advantageous to share with the citizens, but it also would tip our hand and put us at a disadvantage and leveraging the best possible outcome for us all. In the meantime, there are gonna be things on this subject that I simply cannot talk about.
Remember folks, the folks making these decisions in those Council chairs have sewer bills too…some of them too are on fixed incomes…you have a pretty good cross section sitting up there…..it’s not like they don’t understand.
So stayed tuned, strap in, and hang on…