Water rates get a brief reprieve
Published on November 28th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - Town Administrator David Ragucci delayed an anticipated hike in water and sewer bills Tuesday night, but local officials characterized the likely combined $1 jump in rates as unavoidable.
During a public hearing on Tuesday night, Ragucci relented to pressure from a handful of local residents who decried the low attendance at the meeting and called for detailed figures that explained the reasons behind the rate increases.
A second meeting on the rate increases will be held next week, although an exact date and time has not yet been determined.
According to DPW Director Robert Grover, water and sewer rates must be increased if the town is to avoid running a deficit at year's end. Grover is proposing that water charges increase from $3.40 to $4.00 per 100 cubic feet and sewer costs shift from $7.20 to $7.60.
Combined with a 60 cent jump in sewer costs last summer, the average homeowner can expect to see a $160 rise in water and sewer bills this year, according to figures provided by the DPW director.
Town officials estimate that if the rates remain unchanged, water enterprise accounts will carry a $75,000 shortfall, while sewer revenues will be $470,000 in arrears.
"All things being equal, at the end of the year, we'd have $140,000 in the water account and $148,000 in the sewers," said Grover, who argued that the funds needed to have a much healthier surplus in order to avoid mid-year rate changes.
"If we don't do something now and for the next bill, when we have a several hundred thousand dollar shortfall, where do we take it from?" continued the DPW director, who warned any shortfall would have to come out of the town's cash-strapped general fund.
According to Gigante Road resident Frank Pignone, he believed that the town should have a much more detailed breakdown of what was driving the need for the rate increases.
In particular, Pignone pointed out that the MWRA was charging approximately $2.5 million for water services this year, but that the towns costs actually amounted to $3.7 million for FY'08.
The Gigante Road resident argued that the town needed to determine whether the government was using less water, if indirect costs tacked onto the budget were accurate, and whether wholesale ratepayers, such as Kraft Foods in Woburn, were driving up local residents' costs.
"As we follow the rate system in Stoneham, something interests me. What the people don't understand is the actual things you put on it," said Pignone, referring to indirect costs, such as equipment purchases, funding to the accounting office for maintaining financial records, and retirement costs that area tacked onto MWRA bills.
"If the government is using less water, the way I understand it, then we actually have a pretty good situation," the local resident later said of municipal and school water use. "The property tax pays for that. So if we're using less, we have a nice surprise, because we have a surplus in our property taxes."
According to Grover, he had no way to track the town's water usage to provide the figures Pignone was requesting. The DPW director further insisted that all indirect charges on the water bill reflected the actual costs of running the water and sewer departments.
Selectman Paul Rotondi later agreed with many of Pignone's points, but argued that the town was currently in a pinch regardless of how the problem was being caused.
"You're asking legitimate questions. But you have to understand that these costs were approved at Town Meeting. The reason we're asking for an increase is because the revenues aren't matching those costs," said Rotondi.
"For FY'09, if you want to change the way we do business, that's fine," Grover later said, referring to the questions about indirect water costs and the tracking of municipal water use. "But you don't do that when you're midway through the year."
In 1997, Town Meeting appropriated $15,000 for the construction of the skateboard park after dozens of local residents and young skateboard enthusiasts lobbied for the recreation space.
At first, the Skateboard and Rollerblade Committee eyed a spot near the high school, but that location was later abandoned for the upper portion of Pomeworth Park.
In Sept. of 1999, after the ramps and property were vandalized and abused on several occasions, the town briefly shut the park down. However, after town officials agreed to institute new hours of operation and other rules for the space - to address concerns of frustrated neighbors - the skateboard park reopened.
Referring to the process leading up to the creation of the skateboard park, Finance Board Chair John Warren recalled the controversy over what types of materials should be used for the space.
At the time, Grover and Skateboarding and Rollerblading Committee Chair Marc Grimaldi insisted that the park should be constructed out of concrete and other more durable materials.
However, skateboarders and local residents, citing safety concerns, successfully convinced town officials to use plywood for the ramps instead.
"The original construction, against the DPW Director's advice, was for plywood," Warren explained. "So that's part of the reason that it's in that condition. He said if it's not replaced or repaired on an annual basis, it would fall into the condition it is now."
Ragucci later challenged the suggestion that the park would be better respected if better materials were used. According to the Town Administrator, he believed that skateboard parks, for reasons unexplained, attract vandals.
"I had done a skateboard park right next to the police station in Everett and it was the same result: Vandalism, filth, and the cutting down of fences," responded Ragucci, who explained that concrete was used in that instance. "It turned into a circus, a zoo, to the point where we just got rid of the equipment."
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