For the third time in as many years, water rates in the village of Plandome have been raised.
The Manhasset-Lakeville Water District, which has supplied the village with wholesale water under two contracts since 1992, raised the village’s water rate from $4.20 per 1,000 gallons to $4.84 per 1,000 gallons, according to a recent press release from the village.
The new rate marks a 15 percent year-to-year increase and a 26 percent hike since the start of the village’s current water contract with the district in 2012, according to the release.
“It is fair to question whether MLWD is exploiting the village’s captive status to impose such large back-to-back rate increases over such a short period of time,” Village of Plandome Mayor M. Lloyd Williams said in the release.
The water district lowered the village’s water rates to a fixed $3.85 per 1,000 gallons for the last five years of its first contract, which ended in 2012.
At the start of its next water contract, Plandome saw a water rate increase of 9 percent, to $4.20 per 1,000 gallons.
“The latest rate increase only adds insult to injury,” Williams said in the release.
According to the release, the village is at odds with the water district because the district only provides “wholesale service” and charges as if it provides retail service, which includes operating and maintaining fire hydrants and performing invoicing-related functions.
“MLWD’s unjustified position essentially forces Village residents to pay twice for retail expenses, once for MLWD’s retail-related expenses that are not incurred to serve Village residents, and again for the Village’s retail-related expenses that are incurred to serve Village residents,” Village of Plandome Trustee Judy Bode said in the release.
The village filed a lawsuit against the water district in November 2012 claiming the district’s water calculation rates were “arbitrary, unreasonable and otherwise improper.” At press time, a verdict in that case had not yet been returned.
Chris Prior, the water district’s attorney on behalf of the Great Neck-based Ackerman, Levine, Cullen, Brickman & Limmer, LLP, said Tuesday that the village’s release did not mention that the village’s water rate did not increase from 2006-2011 and called the ongoing legal proceedings “unfortunate.”
“We don’t wish to litigate this in the press, but we are concerned that the village is doing that and is issuing misleading information when it does so,” Prior said. “The press release challenges the reasonableness of the costs. That is the issue that all these taxpayer dollars are being used to decide in court. Let’s let the courts do their job.”
According to a letter provided to a Plandome resident under the Freedom of Information Law that was given to the Manhasset Times, the village of Plandome was billed $280,196 by the Washington D.C.-based law firm Duncan Weinberg Genzer & Pembroke and $44,757 by the Mt. Laurel, New Jersey-based AUS Consultants for their services in the suit.
In a statement Prior provided the Manhasset Times in March regarding the history of the water district’s relationship with the village, Prior said the village’s 2012 rate was only 35 cents per 1,000 gallons greater than its previous rate, equal to an average annual increase of 1.76 percent over the five years its rate had been fixed.
Prior said the water district issued letters in February and June 2012 in which it describes its water rate calculations in accordance with actual expenditures, which had been the village’s request. Both letters conclude to say that the village’s acceptance of the district’s water accounted for its acceptance of the district’s rates.
“MLWD believes it is unfortunate for the taxpayers of both MLWD and the Village to incur large legal expenses because of this action taken by the Village Board of Trustees,” Prior said in the statement. “MLWD was approached over twenty years ago to supply water to the Village when the late Mayor Brian Vincent and the Village Trustees sought an alternative to making the necessary investment in its own Water supply system.”
The village has also recently explored alternative water options, which include reactivating pre-existing wells operated prior to the initial contract with the water district.
