An image from the Zoom meeting.
ANSONIA – The Ansonia Board of Aldermen voted to sell the city’s wastewater treatment system to private water company Aquarion during a contentious meeting on May 28.
The Aldermen voted 12 — 2 in favor of the $41 million sale. Aldermen Dan King and Chicago Rivers – who both sit on the WPCA Board – voted against the sale.
Following the vote, Ansonia is set to become the second city in Connecticut, after New Hartford, to sell its wastewater assets to a private company.
During the meeting’s public session, seven speakers said they opposed the sale and criticized what they saw as a lack of public inclusion in sale discussions.
Former Ansonia Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman Bart Flaherty, who has raised questions at past WPCA meetings about the sale, said that the city was making a mistake.
“The entire process has been flawed since its inception, and selling it is a blunder of monumental proportions,” Flaherty said. “To sell this valuable resource will have profound consequences far beyond this meeting tonight.”
Former Alderwoman Tara Kolakowski argued that the sale should have gone out to a referendum, an argument that was repeated by at least two other speakers.
“This is too big and too important to the city for fourteen members to shoulder this decision,” Kolakowski said. “I firmly believe that tabling this is in the best interest of every resident and in the best interest of the city.”
The city has previously defended its decision not to put the sale out to referendum, arguing in a document released last week that it was following the process for city asset sales as laid out in the city charter.
Alderman King said that the sale process wasn’t inclusive. He said the WPCA board wasn’t included in the sale.
“We were never consulted, asked what we thought, asked for our opinion, asked for our knowledge. And we wanted to know, as did the rest of the city, what input the city residents would have after this purchase,” King said after the vote.
King’s comments echoed comments he made in March, when he said that the WPCA was “out of the loop” on talks of a sale.
Two speakers – Sharon Voroschak, a member of the Ansonia Board of Education, and Rich DiCarlo, a city employee from Derby – spoke in favor of the sale. Voroschak said that a private company can run the WPCA better than the city can, and that money from the sale can be reinvested into public services including education and the police.
“(The deal) is an amazing win-win that allows Ansonia to focus on the services core to our residents,” Voroschak said.
DiCarlo said that, by selling its plant, Ansonia could avoid rate increases similar to what Derby has implemented in recent years.
“I’m getting inundated with exorbitant fees,” DiCarlo said. “That’s gonna last me at least twenty, twenty-five years, and it’s a big mistake to hold on to a cash cow like that.”
WPCA rates have not increased in Derby.
DiCarlo was talking about a referendum that Derby voters approved to make repairs to its system. However, Ansonia also borrowed money to make repairs in 2008. Residents are still paying it off.
Members of Cassetti’s administration, which supports the deal, have said that selling off the city’s WPCA is a needed step that will save money for both the city and consumers in the long run. They point to a 2019 NVCOG report which said the city’s plant will require $15 million in repairs and investments by 2040.
Opposition to the sale has been vocal in the past month. During a public hearing on April 30 that ran for about two hours and filled the seats at the Ansonia Senior Center, about two dozen speakers, including current WPCA employees and former city officials, voiced their concerns about selling off the plant to a private company.
Opponents have said the Cassetti has been rushing to sell the WPCA because the administration keeps putting millions of dollars of ‘anticipated future revenue’ into its budget. That’s money the city doesn’t currently have, but can get by doing things such as selling its sewer system to a private company.
The administration says the practice keeps the mill rate stable. Opponents say it’s bad policy.
After the public hearing in April, the city released a 10-page document responding to some of the questions raised during the hearing.
Alderwoman Bobbi Tar downplayed public criticism during the Aldermen meeting, arguing that protests against the sale were coming from a vocal minority.
“It’s really a small fraction of the city that are against the sale,” Tar said. “But because they yell the loudest, they create an illusion that they are the majority, and unfortunately that majority is only the minority. We are nobody’s puppets, and I think all of us have done our due diligence in making our decision today.”
King disagreed with Tar’s statement, replying that elected officials should act on behalf of the people who elected them.
“Actually, in fact, we are puppets,” King said. “We are here to represent what the people believe, not what we believe, so we should keep that in mind.”
Ansonia Democrat Thomas Egan, who ran against Cassetti for mayor last November, spoke during the public session, saying that he believed the sale was already a “done deal.”
Democrats have opposed the deal. The Ansonia Democrats Facebook page made a post encouraging residents to speak at the Aldermen meeting, calling the WPCA deal a “misguided and self-serving plan” from the administration.
Alderman Steven Adamowski, who second Alderman Tony Mammone’s motion to authorize the WPCA sale, said that he had reviewed the sale extensively and believed it was in the best interests of the city. He added that he believes the city should have more in-person meetings for the public to attend in the future.
“Regardless of the conclusions each of us may reach from all of this, I think we all learned something in the process,” Adamowski said. “And I hope that the Board of Aldermen will have more frequent in-person dialogues with the public on key issues affecting the future of the city.”
Following the vote, the deal heads to the mayor’s desk to be signed off by Cassetti’s administration and Aquarion. That signature is expected by May 31, the date that Aquarion’s bid offer is set to expire.
