Former Ansonia Alderman Wiliam Phipps speaks at Tuesday's public hearing.
ANSONIA – Ansonia city officials say that selling the city’s sewer system will bring needed repairs and cut costs for residents. On Tuesday (April 30), about two dozen residents presented a harsher view of the sale.
At a public hearing attended by at least 60 residents, corporation counsel John Marini delivered a presentation supporting a proposed sale of the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) to Aquarion, a private utility company. After the floor was opened for public comment, residents questioned nearly every aspect of the deal.
The video from the meeting is posted at the bottom of this story.
Bart Flaherty, a former Planning and Zoning Commission chairman, said that Aquarion’s $56 million bid – which includes a $41 million cash payment to the city, as well as a promise to invest $15 million in plant improvements – doesn’t cover the costs that taxpayers put into maintaining and upgrading the WPCA in the last 15 years.
He said that Aquarion’s $15 million promise shouldn’t be included in the advertised sale price.
“We’re never going to see that $15 million,” Flaherty said.
Other residents said the city could have pushed for a better deal, pointing out that Aquarion’s cash offer is on the low end of the WPCA’s appraised value of between $40 million and $71 million.
“We’re getting the minimum, why is that?” asked Lucy Billini-Artis, a resident and former Aquarion employee. “We have a great asset. We have to either leverage it correctly, or figure out a way on how we could service ourselves, figure out what that would look like for us, before we sell off.”
Flaherty also asked why the deal includes a more than 30 percent rate increase, given that the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority just last year denied a request from Aquarion to raise rates.
If the deal were to go through, rates would increase according to a binding schedule over the next five years. The owner of a single-family home currently paying $41.47 per month would pay $55.71 per month in 2029, according to Aquarion’s bid offer.
Adam Simonsen, a representative from Aquarion, spoke at the hearing.
Simonsen sought to address fears raised by other speakers about the impact of Aquarion potentially being sold by Eversource, its parent company. He said that Aquarion’s operations are self-contained, and that a sale wouldn’t affect the company’s service to residents.
Several speakers said they didn’t want an out-of-town corporation taking over a locally-controlled entity.
City’s Analysis
Mayor David Cassetti’s administration supports the sale, and published a video promoting the deal on social media prior to the public hearing.
The city’s presentation on Tuesday included an analysis of the proposed sale prepared by Kurt Miller, Ansonia’s budget director. Miller’s analysis said that the WPCA would need to nearly double its current rates if it isn’t sold.
The analysis also said that if the WPCA isn’t sold, the city may need to raise its mill rate by six or seven mills – a 25 percent increase over the current rate – in order to hire more employees and fund needed repairs at the plant.
While a video shown to audience members said that this mill rate hike could come as soon as July, both Miller and Marini later told The Valley Indy that the forecasted hike wouldn’t come until 2025.
Jason St. Jacques, the current sewer administrator, doubted Miller’s analysis, saying that the sewer system is in better shape than the analysis claims.
“The sewer plant is not falling apart,” St. Jacques said. “It is not in desperate need of all these repairs.”
St. Jacques, who was briefly the only employee at the plant, said that Miller’s analysis overestimates the cost of repairs.
“The plant is in great shape. Some paint is falling off, yes, we have a couple motors that are down. These are things that we can afford, we can replace, we can fix, over time. They don’t have to be done right away. I don’t see $15 million in repairs needed,” St. Jacques said.
An Aquarion site visit in January found several failing pieces of equipment, including multiple pumps, and said that there was a lack of preventive maintenance being done at the plant.
Sean Greene, who works for Derby Water Pollution Control Authority and lives in Ansonia, echoed St. Jacques’ assessment. He said that the plant’s problems were nothing out of the ordinary.
“If you’re thinking it’s in a bad spot, or it’s in disrepair, you’re really, really misinformed,” Greene said.
Filling A Hole?
Joe Confinante, a former tax board member, said that the city was rushing to sell the WPCA to plug a $5 million “hole” in the current year’s budget.
The budget, passed by the Aldermen last June, included a $5 million line item titled “use of future revenue” from the development of the former Ansonia Copper and Brass complex downtown. Before that budget was passed, residents raised concerns that the city was budgeting money it didn’t have.
“They want to do this so they can plug that $5 million hole that’s there,” Confinante said.
Mayor Cassetti said in a phone call with The Valley Indy before Tuesday’s hearing that the city is still working on acquiring Ansonia Copper and Brass, and that a WPCA sale could indeed make up part of that “future revenue.”
“That is what some of the future revenue is,” Cassetti said. “We’re going to take that and pay that $5 million back. There was the hole in the budget, and that’s where we’re going to fill that in.”
However, Miller and Marini said that Cassetti’s comment was not accurate when asked about it after the hearing. They each said that any money received from a sale would not arrive until after July, when the current budget ends.
A budget proposed by Cassetti last Thursday included an additional $7.8 million in “future revenue.” He said that a WPCA sale was one of several things that that money could come from.
“It’s a mixture of everything, between our SHW property and the sale of the WPCA, that would be the future revenue coming in,” Cassetti said in reference to the proposed budget.
What’s Next?
Marini said during the hearing that residents’ questions would be answered by the city in either a public document or presentation. He said he expects to release it “as early as the next Aldermen meeting” on May 14.
Marini said that the Board of Aldermen will ultimately vote on whether or not to sell the WPCA to Aquarion.
Marini said the deal would not be closed until the next fiscal year, which begins in July. Cassetti, in his phone call with The Valley Indy, said that he hopes to have the sale closed by September or October.
