Multiple items regarding the Sewer Ad Hoc Committee are on the agenda for the Constantine Village Council meeting Monday evening (February 6th). They include:
- Sewer Rates
- Water Rates
- Sewer Video
- Request for Proposals (Attorney)
- Sewer Summary Review (Closed Session).
Sewer items were also on the agenda for the council’s previous meeting on January 16th, a session during which the council voted to appoint Scott Chiddister, a former trustee and past chairman of the Sewer Ad Hoc Committee, to the group.
Unfinished Business slated for consideration Monday evening includes these items:
- Vacation of Alley – Block # 21
- MEDC Façade Grant
- MSHDA Rental Rehabilitation Grant
There’s one item of New Business – 2006 Signature Building Initiative Grants.
The meeting will get underway at 7 p.m. in the Constantine Village Hall.
I would really encourage local residents to start attending a few of these meetings in coming weeks and months, as this is going to be a topic that’s going to pretty much impact us all in the pocket book. TR has hit all rate users with a 55% rate increase. As we pay a higher rate than a TR rate user 55% in real dollars is a higher dollar amount. The village has been incurring these costs without a rate increase since around June of last year, and can’t do this any longer without depleting their fund balance. That’s the gist of the short term challenge insofar as sewer rates…there is a long term strategy component to this also. Water rates is a different critter other than water usage in most (not all) cases impacts sewer usage also.
Depending on your usage…it’ll impact different folks to differing degrees.. Some of the content will still be in closed session but I think there is going to be enough open session content in coming meetings to give folks the chance to at least get a better understanding of why we kinda are where we are based on the hand that we have been dealt by past decisions. There are some suggested solutions in the short term that are going to be deliberated that, IF (and I emphasize the word IF) they were to come to fruition, would help soften some (certainly not all) of the pending rate increases. In parallel with that, there is alot of consideration going on for different and existing options for the long term.