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A water billing dispute between the town of Pomfret and the village of Fredonia is apparently resolved.
Fredonia Treasurer Erlyssa LeBeau told the Board of Trustees earlier this month that she hashed it out with Pomfret Supervisor Daniel Pacos. She distributed a summary to village officials.
"I met with (Pacos) … and we just went through and verified all of the information that both of us had," LeBeau said. "He had looked through my stuff, I had looked through his stuff. I'm in agreement that what he has on this sheet matches what I have."
The disagreement was essentially over alleged double-billing by Fredonia of several village water customers that are in Pomfret; also, Fredonia complained Pomfret was withholding contractually mandated user fees.
After a deep dive into the numbers, LeBeau and Pacos apparently worked things out.
Mayor Douglas Essek said to LeBeau, "I know it seems like it's taken forever, but sometimes to iron out everything, it does take some time… I appreciate the hard work you've done and I appreciate the hard work Supervisor Pacos has done on his end of this to get this resolved. And we can move forward amicably, and hopefully this situation won't happen again."
Pacos also briefly mentioned the dispute's resolution at Pomfret's monthly town board meeting. He had hinted at the March meeting that the dispute was set to get taken care of.
He said Pomfret has paid its balance due to Fredonia on water. "We had to find out which (properties) were served off the village lines and which weren't," he said. "Some corrections needed to be made both ways."
Town Attormey Jeffrey Passafaro asked Pacos if he was satisfied with the billing protocol. The supervisor indicated that he was.
There is still one thing to get resolved, though Pacos didn't seem too worried about it. There are evidently five customers near Lakeview Road and the Fredonia Central Schools who get Pomfret water but are not in a town sewer district.
Pacos said it was a "messy" situation, but no one has ever had a problem with the customers in question paying their bills. He said he would ask Fredonia to temporarily bill those five customers for sewer use, and in the future, he would look into getting them into a Pomfret sewer district.
Deputy Pomfret Supervisor Ann Eckman commented that the town is trying to clean up all such situations, so there are no issues moving forward.