The village boards of East Williston and their neighbor Williston Park recently established the principles behind a long-term agreement on water services from Williston Park at a special meeting Thursday, March 3.
East Williston still maintains their option to split apart from Williston Park, their long-time supplier, and construct a $7.5 million water well system of their own.
For more than three hours and breaking into two executive sessions at Williston Park Village Hall, both villages alongside representing attorneys reviewed and made changes to the language of the agreement document before it was finalized by the attorneys. Absent from attendance were Williston Park trustees Michael Uttaro and Teresa Thomann.
Both village boards met on Dec. 17 of last year to discuss reaching an agreement, and served as settling disagreements on a draft that had been approved by Williston Park in January.
Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said it was his hopes an agreement would have been put into place by mid-February.
“My expectation tonight was to come to an understanding and agreement and get something signed within the next couple of weeks,” Ehrbar said. “My hope is to stop the legal fees, stop the engineering fees and move on with our other issues.”
While East Williston has agreed that an agreement is the objective, their village board and Mayor David Tanner stand by their view of “parallel paths”—which includes their option of building their own well. Members of the Williston Park village board have objected to that option remaining on the table.
The agreement in principle is for 25 years and states that East Williston will purchase water from Williston Park at the current rate of $4.33 per thousand gallons—which is locked until June 2018. Future increases would be kept along the same ratio of East Williston’s rate to the residential rate in Williston Park, and East Williston has the ability to voice their position before a public hearing would be held on such increases.
Williston Park has sought after East Williston to pay approximately $500,000 in outstanding water penalties for non-payments—East Williston will pay $100,000 over the course of one year.
Both villages would be maintaining their own water infrastructure and Williston Park has the ability to raise water rates to fund infrastructure costs of their own.
An emergency water chlorination system was heavily discussed. Williston Park will chlorinate East Williston’s water in an emergency such as contamination, however Ehrbar said that he doesn’t want Williston Park to incur any cost if East Williston has to build their own chlorination system.
“Our point is that we’re entering into a deal where Williston Park will be providing chlorination for us and if there is some sort of future need—their residents will need it and we’ll need it as well,” Tanner said.
According to Vella, Williston Park never having to pay directly for any infrastructure in East Williston, and visa-versa, is written so red flags aren’t raised pertaining to chlorination whereby the Nassau County Department of Health could decree that East Williston needs their own chlorination system.
“Our concern is that regulatory agencies could require villages like our own who only have a water distribution system to implement our own permanent emergency chlorination system—and if that happens, its on our dime,” Vella said.
A clause was also removed which would have given Williston Park an opt out of the agreement in the event they could no longer meet their own water supply requirements—with a notice of one year for East Williston. There is also an indemnification clause for both villages should there be damage caused by their water systems.
Williston Park has a $10 million insurance policy and John Mirando, a water services consultant for East Williston, explained that an insurance policy of $5 is sufficient for East Williston due to less liability.
“This is the largest public issue that we’ve ever had to address.”
As a precautionary measure, East Williston is reaching out to Nassau County to get their approval on an agreement. From there, East Williston intends to put a well up for public referendum—which requires a passed resolution.
The well would be located at Devlin Park and the East Williston board itself differs on whether or not the hold a public referendum on the financing of the well— it would not be a vote of whether to go with the water system or an agreement with Williston Park.
East Williston Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente disagrees with the referendum, saying that as elected officials, they are put into place to handle negotiations. Vella, who has decided not to seek re-election thus making this is final term, supports the idea of a referendum, and is joined by Trustees Christopher Siciliano and James Iannone.
“I think this issue is too contested within the community for us to impose our views on it,” Vella said.
Tanner said he thinks it is likely that East Williston residents could vote down the referendum—which would make way for a stronger agreement. If the referendum fails, East Williston must enter into agreement with Williston Park.
“It would just be another way to bring us closer together,” Tanner said. “This is the largest public issue that we’ve ever had to address.”
