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It is now official. The village of Fredonia and town of Pomfret have a new contract for water and sewer.
At Pomfret's Town Board meeting Wednesday, Supervisor Dan Pacos said the process that led to this endeavour finally reaching a finish line took more than a year's worth of work.
"Currently, up until recently, residents were paying 170% of the village water rate and 200% of the sewer rate. Town commercial customers were paying 300% of the village water rate and 300% of the village sewage rate," Pacos said. "All of our contracts except for our water district contract for the north end water district had expired back as far as 20 years ago.
"In January of 2020, I started asking the village about contract negotiations, by March I sent formal letters to the village requesting negotiations because I hadn't heard anything."
The ball started rolling in May in what would be eight meetings to discuss conditions.
"On Oct. 27, the mayor (Doug Essek) presented us with an offer for 15% over the village's rate for all water and sewer districts with five year contractual rates," Pacos added. "We then discussed some other changes that we'd given our attorney later on such as agricultural use for watering livestock, amending the whole harmless agreement where the village would be liable for damages in case of negligence and putting a clause in allowing the town to cancel the contracts just like the village had a clause."
Dec. 19 the contracts were sent to the village attorney. But that was when Dan Gard was leaving his position in Fredonia. Pacos followed up with Essek in January and explained that the town kept the North End Water District at 25-year term because they didn't want to affect Frednoia's financing on the district, which was originally a 30-year contract.
"Dec. 19 they had a village board meeting, one of the trustees stated that the contract changes were never discussed in negotiations, I followed up with an email with the explanation and gave them all the things that we had talked about," Pacos noted. "In February the mayor informed me that he wouldn't be involved in negotiations any more, I responded and sent a copy of all the draft documents that our attorney (Jeff Passafaro) provided to us.
"Feb. 25 I spoke with one of the trustees who requested we send draft copies to all of the water and sewer districts. We sent those along with a copy of county law section 263, because the former attorney had said that the town was not able to change water suppliers without permission of the village and cited that law."
On Feb. 26 to March 1, the town sent the draft water and sewer contracts and the village's new attorney contacted Passafaro. They worked through some changes, came back in March 5 with a couple small wording changes, which Pacos agreed.
"The other night (March 8) the trustee mentioned that negotiations were never finalized, that the town came up with this offer and he voted not to support the contracts, although they did pass," Pacos mentioned. "I'm pleased that although it took a long, long time and a lot of effort that we were able to reach an agreement that I think was good for all Pomfret residents and businesses inside the village and outside the village, that's what I was elected to do when I came here and I think Deputy Supervisor (Ann) Eckman and I did that; it was always our preference to remain with the village water supplier. We're happy that we're able to continue our working relationship in collaboration with the village and I would now like to look to extend our water and sewer services to other areas and to give the village more customers."
The village of Fredonia has been notified to make sure that town customers are charged the correct rates for the first quarter as the contract is retroactive to Jan. 1.
Pacos was further going to request that the town be reduced for their minimum. However after looking into fund balances in water and sewer it was found that the deficits have increased a bit and he decided to revisit that next year. The new billing rate down per 1,000 gallons above the minimum will be $6 for residential and commercial customers for water and $7.10 for sewer, according to the resolution that passed unanimously.