The Williston Park Village Board delayed approving a water rate increase this week after an East Williston trustee asked for a chance for his village’s board to offer comments – and perhaps revive negotiations between the two municipalities currently locked in a lawsuit over what Williston Park charges East Williston for water.
“Our hope is that the board will hold this decision in abeyance until we can discuss the rates. My hope is that we can find some middle ground,” East Williston Trustee Robert Vella Jr. told the Williston Park board members at Monday night’s water rates hearing.
Williston Park’s proposed schedule of rate increases would push the wholesale rate Williston Park is now charging its neighboring village up 15 percent to $4.41 per 1,000 gallons of water from the current $3.83 per 1,000 gallons of water. Imposition of the $3.83 rate last April – from the $2.99 per 1,000 gallons rate that preceded it – precipitated the lawsuit in which East Williston contends the rate increase was “arbitrary or capricious.”
Last year’s rate increase to $3.83 per 1,000 gallons charged to East Williston followed a breakdown in negotiations over the water rates between the two villages. East Williston officials walked out of a meeting with Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar last February.
In a March 2 letter sent after the East Williston officials walked out, Ehrbar said Williston Park officials were still willing to continue discussions with East Williston to establish a long-term agreement. The last formal agreement between the two villages on the water rate expired in 1992.
At Monday night’s meeting, William Merklin, vice president of Dvirka & Bartilucci, presented a report on Williston Park’s water rates that the Williston Park board had commissioned. Merklin said the village water department faced a projected $156,000 deficit in the current fiscal year and had an $80,000 deficit at the end of the fiscal year that ended on May 31.
The report advised Williston Park to include a “modest” 12 percent surcharge on the rates charged East Williston, which would bring Williston Park $611,000. The report puts the minimum cost of water services to East Williston for the current fiscal year at $546,525.43.
The report states that information received from the New York Conference of Mayors said that surcharges of 50 percent to 100 percent are “common.”
In response to a resident’s question about how much of the shortfall in revenues is due to the expenses incurred in selling water to East Williston, Merklin said it wasn’t possible to segregate that cost from other expenses.
“In theory, you’re losing money on all of the rates,” Merklin said.
The report stated that $546,525.43 in water charges to East Williston would represent 33 percent of the village’s total cost for water service compared to $1,107,985.24 to cover 67 percent of the costs for Williston Park itself. The report also proposed a 12.2 percent increase for residential and commercial users in Williston Park. For usage over 10,000 gallons, that would mean a residential rate increase to $3.89 per 1,000 gallons from the current $3.47, $4.06 over 50,000 gallons and a commercial rate increase to $4.30 per 1,000 gallons from $3.83.
The rate increases are based on four years of water-usage data, Merklin said.
Projected costs for the current fiscal year include $50,000 for capital improvements. The $18,000 cost of the report would be amortized over the next few years. The $21,603.98 Williston Park has incurred in the water rates lawsuit would also be spread over four years.
Williston Park village attorney James Bradley said the Village of East Williston has withheld money on its last few water bill payments to Williston Park.
Ehrbar said he was scheduled to meet with East Williston Mayor David Tanner and Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente on Wednesday. He said “nothing happened” in negotiations between the two villages after the lawsuit was filed until he spoke with Parente six weeks ago.
After the meeting, Ehrar said he and Williston Park Deputy Mayor Kevin Rynne were set to “discuss common issues” with East Williston officials .
“We’re not looking to be adversarial. We never have,” Ehrbar said.
Bradley asked Vella if he was asking for time to review the Dvirka & Bartilucci report. Vella said he was asking for that and for “time to negotiate with your board.”
Ehrbar asked Vella if he was speaking on behalf of the East Williston board, which Vella said he was.
East Williston village attorney Jeffrey Blinkoff accompanied Vella at the meeting but did not speak.
Trustee Teresa Thomann asked Vella why the East Williston board did not respond or seek to obtain a copy of the report when they were notified about it in writing nearly two weeks ago. Vella said he didn’t know about the new report.
“East Williston had every opportunity to review the documents and meet with you,” said former Williston Park Mayor Doreen Ehrbar, adding, “I think this is a little bit underhanded and publicity-seeking.”
Earlier in the discussion, she said East Williston officials had not attempted to “help the situation along since 2005,” when the two villages jointly commissioned a report to try to resolve the water rate issues between them.
“I would hope with the new board we have we can bridge those gaps. I consider it one community,” said Vella, who noted that he grew up in Williston Park.
Vella and Christopher Siciliano were newly elected to the East Williston Village Board earlier this year. East Williston Trustees Bonnie Parente and Caroline DeBenedittis were elected to the board for their first terms last year.
Bradley said the board could continue the water rates hearing until a specified date to allow East Williston officials, or anyone else, to make comments.
Rynne suggested keeping the hearing open through July 9 and the board voted unanimously to do that.
Bradley asked that East Williston officials submit their comments via e-mail or in writing.
In other developments:
• Trustee Michael Uttaro said several large planters on Hillside Avenue had been turned over recently in an apparent act of vandalism. He said the Beautification Committee had righted them.
• A meeting of the village Neighborhood Watch block captains will be held at the gazebo on June 28 at 8 p.m., following a concert there that night.
• The East Williston Fire Department recently honored Jerry Umlauf for 40 years of service.
