ANSONIA – Ahead of a vote on May 28 on whether to sell the city’s sewer infrastructure to Aquarion, Mayor David Cassetti’s administration released a 10-page document responding to questions raised during an April 30 public hearing.
“I urge you to review my answers to the questions that arose at the public hearing,” Cassetti said in a robocall to residents on May 22.
The Board of Aldermen could vote to approve the sale at a meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday.
That vote could be the final step in negotiations between the city and Aquarion that began in February.
This would make Ansonia the second city in Connecticut to sell its WPCA assets to a private company. New Hartford did the same – also to Aquarion – in a sale that was finalized last October.
In April, Aquarion offered Ansonia $41 million for the sewer system. The bid also contained a promise to invest at least $15 million into the system in its first five years of ownership.
The Cassetti administration supports the deal.
Members of Cassetti’s administration 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.
However, at a public hearing on April 30, about two dozen residents disagreed with that assessment. Members of the public alleged that the city is scrambling to fill holes in its budget and that the public wasn’t being included in the decision to sell.
Joe Confinante, a former tax board member, said at the hearing that the city was rushing to sell the WPCA to fill a hole created after the city budgeted $5 million in anticipated “future revenue.”
“That is what some of the future revenue is,” Confinante 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.”
The Q&A document released by the city does not address Confinante’s statement – but it does say that the proposed sale “grows the fund balance; reduces existing debt … and keeps the mill rate low for the foreseeable future.”
Ansonia’s budget director Kurt Miller, in a Great Give interview with the Valley Indy, said that that $5 million wasn’t tied to the WPCA. He also said that an additional $7 million in “future revenue” in the city’s proposed budget is also unconnected to the WPCA.
However, Cassetti said in a telephone interview that a WPCA sale is one of several things that the “future revenue” 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.
Also at the public hearing, Ansonia WPCA Superintendent Jason St. Jacques and Derby WPCA employee Sean Greene said that the WPCA’s water treatment facility is in much better condition than the city has represented.
An analysis prepared by Miller in support of the sale said that the plant needs about $15 million in improvements and repairs, and that the burden would be passed on to ratepayers if the plant is not sold. St. Jacques said that Miller’s analysis overestimates the costs.
“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.
The city’s Q&A document repeats Miller’s number, citing a 2019 NVCOG report that said Ansonia’s facility would require $15 million in investment by 2040.
The Q&A document also says additional money would need to be borrowed to fund that investment, and it says that the current “special project fee” – a $230 annual charge to ratepayers to help pay off a 2008 loan for plant upgrades – would likely never go away.
“The WPCA has avoided additional borrowing by deferring maintenance and repairs with the hope that the special project bill could end when the current loan is paid in full,” the document says. “This is a false hope.”
However, there are four years left until that loan is paid off, according to sewer administrator Rita St. Jacques.
Speakers at the hearing also alleged that the city was excluding the public in its attempt to sell the WPCA. Former Democratic Alderman candidate Patricio Silva suggested that the sale was already a “done deal,” while Ansonia resident Paul Mengold said the Aldermen should hold another meeting to answer the public’s questions.
“I don’t understand. What’s to hide?” Mengold asked.
The Q&A document defended the city’s process, arguing that the Aldermen meetings where a WPCA sale were discussed were all open to the public, and that it was following the process for city asset sales as laid out in the city charter.
The Q&A document also responds to questions raised in the hearing by Bart Flaherty, a former member of the Planning & Zoning Commission. Flaherty asked whether Aquarion would have the ability to bake in additional “delivery charges,” on top of its use charge, and why the deal includes a property tax exemption for Aquarion.
The document says that wastewater utilities – unlike other utilities – are forbidden by law from charging delivery fees, and it argues that any property taxes charged to Aquarion would be passed on to ratepayers.
Click here to read the city’s 10-page Q&A document in full.
The Ansonia Democratic Town Committee posted the date of the upcoming Aldermen vote on Facebook and encouraged residents to oppose the sale. The Valley Indy reached out to ask for a response to the administration’s Q&A document, but had not received one by deadline.
The Aldermen meeting at 7 p.m. on May 28 is scheduled to be conducted online. Check the city website ‘Meetings’ tab to find the link to that hearing.
