The village of Fredonia appears set to get a seat on the North County Water District administrative board, now that it has agreed in principle to buy water from the municipal coalition.

Members of the water district board discussed the issue at their September meeting. Fredonia’s Board of Trustees voted the previous evening to work on acquiring water from the NCWD.

Ironically, voting at the NCWD meeting got delayed because there was initially not a quorum for the 11-member board. Board Chairman Dan Pacos, the Pomfret town supervisor, resorted to rousing Town of Dunkirk counterpart Priscilla Penfold out of her sickbed so there could be a quorum. He said she wanted to stay home unless there was no quorum — but only five board members originally showed up, so Penfold arrived about 10 minutes into the session.

The five who attended besides Penfold were Pacos, Town of Portland Supervisor Rich Lewis, Brocton Mayor Craig Miller, Brian Purol, and Bob Bankoski, a Chautauqua County legislator who represents Dunkirk. The quintet that stayed away were David Hazleton, Richard Lascola, county legislators Terry Niebel and John Penhollow, and Sheridan Town Supervisor Tom Wik.

Before Penfold arrived, Lewis sought to open a discussion about what comes next now that Fredonia wants to do business. He wondered if “the county will have a problem” with giving the village a seat on the water district administrative board.

Alison Vento, executive director of the NCWD, responded that she assumed there would be an amendment to the Chautauqua County Legislature resolution that sets out the board’s composition, to include a place for Fredonia.

Pacos said he thought the county should also add a 13th member to the board, to ensure that tie votes never happen if the full board attends.

“Their action last night was really just to set a course so they can apply for grant funding,” Pacos said of Fredonia’s trustees. The village intends to build a new tank, pumping equipment, and piping with Pomfret and hopes to get a grant for the project. Fredonia did also approve a bond resolution, just in case grant applications fall through.

Pacos stated that Fredonia needed a bonding resolution in place so it could improve its grant applications.

He noted that the Pomfret Town Board also approved an intermunicipal agreement with Fredonia for the project.

Pacos said he was not sure why opponents of the plan think Fredonia’s water prices will soar. Higher volume of use in the district, which Fredonia will provide, will lower total costs, he said.

City of Dunkirk water system chief Randy Woodbury backed Pacos up, calling it “an economy of scale. It’s Economics 101.”

Woodbury said, “The more we sell without having to build a whole new plant, the more the cost will come down.”

He pointed out that the city has a long-term contract with the NCWD as its sole water supplier. “We’ve got all these people looking over our shoulder saying we can arbitrarily change things, We can’t,” due to the terms of the contract.