Trustees representing the Villages of Williston Park and East Williston met last Wednesday in an effort to settle the water rate dispute between the neighboring towns that escalated into a lawsuit East Williston filed against Williston Park earlier this year.
The meeting, which included Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar and Deputy Mayor Kevin Rynne and East Williston Mayor David Tanner and Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente, was the first of what East Williston officials said could be a series of meetings intended to resolve the issues of what Williston Park charges East Williston for water.
“I thought it went well and the fact that the parties are speaking speaks volumes. Both parties are interested in resolving the matter,” said East Williston Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente. “We’re hopeful that they will be future meetings.”
East Williston Mayor David Tanner agreed that the meeting went well enough to expect the talks between the two sides to continue.
“I think the meeting went well. And I’m looking to continued discussions,” Tanner said.
Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar was a bit more guarded and declined to say whether he thought the initial meeting signaled the prospect of continuing negotiations.
“We both have things to bring back to our boards with the conversation that took place,” Ehrbar said.
Parente said she had broken the ice in the stalemate between the two villages by meeting informally with Ehrbar in April. With imminent changes in the make-up of both boards, plans for formal negotiations were put off until members of both village’s reconstituted boards of trustees could be consulted.
“We both needed to regroup with our new boards,” Parente said.
East Williston Trustee Robert Vella Jr. appeared at the Williston Park Village Board meeting on June 18 as an emissary from his village board. He convinced the members of the Williston Park board to delay a decision they were poised to make on another water rate increase for their own residential and commercial users and the wholesale rate they impose on East Williston.
Vella told them the East Williston board wanted time to review the proposed rate increases – and an opportunity to resume negotiations with their neighbor village board members.
“My hope is that we can find some middle ground,” Vella said.
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 a $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 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.
A source familiar with the talks said East Williston officials are eager to avoid another rate increase that will prompt it to push water rates to its residents higher. Both villages are interested in halting the lawsuits that are costing them legal fees that further complicate their water expenses.
A report from consulting engineers Dvirka & Bartilucci commissioned by the Williston Park Village Board recommended the rate increase and revealed that the village’s litigation fees are $21,603.98 to date. The fees are to be amortized over the next four years as part of the village’s water department expenses, the report said.
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 Williston Park board voted unanimously last week to give East Williston officials an opportunity to file comments about the rates the Dvirka & Bartilucci report recommended through July 9.
Reach reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204
