Village of East Williston Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente said Friday that the Village of Williston Park has no legal grounds to charge East Williston $300,000 – or any other amount – in interest and penalties on fees for water left unpaid while the two villages battled in court over rate increases imposed by Williston Park on its neighbor village.
“The dispute about the late fees is a manufactured dispute by Williston Park. There were no late fees or penalties awarded by the court,” said Parente, a lawyer with a practice in Mineola.
Parente said the Williston Park’s village code does not include language that would allow the village to impose penalties on East Williston.
“A clear reading of Williston Park’s own code does not support the issuance of penalties against East Williston or any of its residents,” she said.
East Williston recently sent Williston Park $239,000 of the $300,000 Williston Park has demanded for unpaid rate increases incurred during a three-year court battle between the two villages. Village of East Williston Mayor David Tanner said the village was refusing to pay $300,000 in interest and penalties demanded by Williston Park, calling the charges “onerous.”
The payment followed two decisions issued by the state Appellate Court on July 9.
In the first, the court upheld a lower court ruling on that first suit that said Williston Park should have held a public hearing before imposing that increase.
In the second ruling, 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 August 2012 when the village trustees raised the price to $4.33 per thousand gallons. The second suit was filed by East Williston shortly after the second rate increase was imposed.
Tanner said East Williston had subtracted $61,000 from the $300,000 in rate increases owed by East Williston based on the court’s ruling that Williston Park had improperly enacted the first rate increase.
At an Aug. 18 village board meeting, Ehrbar said the Williston Park board was on sound legal footing in seeking payment of the $300,000 in penalties.
“The rates we’ve estimated have been approved by the courts. We’re not price gouging. We’re not being vindictive,” Ehrbar said.
On Monday, Ehrbar also accused East Williston of being inconsistent in its arguments, citing Williston Park’s village code in seeking interest and penalties.
Williston Park water bills state that “bills remaining unpaid and in arrears for 60 days…are due and payable shall be subject to a penalty of 10 percent for the first month and 5 percent additional for each subsequent month or fraction thereof that such bill remains unpaid (or such other sum provided for by resolution of the Board of Trustees.)”
“It’s ironic in one sense that they sued us in the first lawsuit for not following our code. Now they’re telling us our penalties are not valid based on our code,” Ehrbar said.
Parente said Williston Park’s codes only defines penalties to be assessed against its own residents who don’t pay their water bills on time – not municipal customers. She also said the East Williston trustees did everything they were supposed to do as the two lawsuits against Williston Park were being contested in Nassau County Supreme Court and state Appellate Court.
“We collected the disputed rate from our residents and put the money in escrow in case the ruling went in Willliston Park’s favor,” Parente said.
Ehrbar said there has been “some communication” between the representatives of the two villages since Williston Park sent its $600,000 bill and received a payment of $269,000.
“We’re hoping we can resolve it. The sooner the better,” Ehrbar said.
Ehrbar said he wants to avoid starting another lawsuit to resolve the penalties Williston Park is now seeking to collect.
“We’re hoping we don’t have to. But that’s on their end of it,” Ehrbar said.
Tanner confirmed that there has been contact between the two sides on discussing the billing issues.
“We’re working on setting up a meeting,” Tanner said.
