East Williston votes to begin review process for water well

Christian Araos

The East Williston Board of Trustees voted Monday to begin the environmental review process for building a water well to serve its residents.

The Village will pay the H2M architectural firm no more than $5,500 to conduct the review, which it defines as a Type I action under the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act. 

Despite the resolution to move forward with the plans to build a well, East Williston Mayor David Tanner said he still hopes to strike a compromise with the Village of Williston Park about the rate it is charging its neighbor for water.

“There is at some at point a fati accompli, when there’s no other place to go where we’ve made a commitment to build a well and there’s no going back,” Tanner said.

Speaking after the meeting, Tanner stated that Williston Park officials have been ‘disingenuous’ in their negotiations. 

He said Williston Park officials refused an offer from state Sen. Jack Martins to mediate the negotiations. 

Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar denied ever discussing the negotiations with Martins and labeled Tanner’s description of the negotiating process as ‘totally inaccurate’.

“They may need to look at themselves if they’re saying we’re being disingenuous,” Ehrbar said.

Martins was unavailable for comment on Tuesday.

The resolution passed unanimously with no public comments on the matter. 

Although she was not present at the meeting, Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente asked Tanner to publicly note that she was also in favor of approving the resolution.

“I’m very happy to make that notion,” Trustee Robert Vella quipped during the meeting.

Tanner reiterated his expectation that Williston Park will have to raise its rates again due to a $150,000 budget deficit that exists in Williston Park’s water budget. 

Ehrbar previously attributed the deficit to the legal fees resulting from Williston Park’s ongoing litigation with the Village of East Williston. 

That explanation, Tanner said, is dubious.

“We also were told that they have an emergency well issue that they had to extend money for so I question the $150,000 operating loss for being strictly for legal fee,” Tanner said. “We haven’t spent any kind of money like that. We’ve been very cautious, very conservative with how we use funds.”

Ehrbar said the fact that Tanner is openly discussing the specifics of Williston Park’s water budget intrigued him. He also denied Tanner’s claim that another water rate increase is to come.

“There’s no current plan to have a rate increase,” Ehrbar said. “We are currently in the midst of court action.”

Ehrbar and Tanner each said they are not putting a deadline on negotiations but East Williston is now one step closer towards building its own well. Tanner said the review should be completed by early fall, potentially in time for the next Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 21.

In a letter posted on the village website on July 1, Tanner and the East Williston trustees announced that they will be holding a public meeting in September to “review our water options with residents.” 

The announcement coincided with a decision by the Village of Williston Park to file suit in Nassau County Supreme Court against East Williston over unpaid penalties stemming from an ongoing dispute over the price Williston Park is charging East Williston for water.

In 2011, Williston Park board raised the price of water to East Williston from $2.99 per thousand gallons to $3.83 per thousand gallons. Williston Park followed with an increase from $3.83 per thousand gallons to $4.33 per thousand gallons in 2012. Ehrbar said the rate increases included other services that differed East Williston’s cost of water.

East Williston trustees filed lawsuits against Williston Park following each rate increase.  

In early July 2014, a state Appellate Court found in favor of East Williston in the first lawsuit, stating that Williston Park should have held a public hearing prior to imposing the first rate increase in 2011. But the court found in favor of Williston Park in the second lawsuit, stating that Williston Park was within its right to raise the water rates in 2012 to $4.33 per thousand gallons.

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