COMMENTARY-- Dawn Marie Sewer and Water

Over the last few years its been a strategic goal of the village to get sewer and water down to our SW quadrant, to do many things, mainly to push economic development in the area. We are just now starting to see results. I think its crucial to the future of the village that we dictate what happens on the vacant land there rather then Volo. If we allow Volo to move in that area, we will have homes everywhere. I prefer a different scenario.

However one of the things that we had to do is actually run the sewer and the water to the area. To get to that area we had to disrupt the street of Dawn Marie. Its home to 19 residents, 15 of them directly affected by the construction. We forced Ryland homes to pony up $100,000 to a fund allowing the 15 residents to connect to our sewer and water at no charge. In fact this was my idea and I repeatedly insisted on it. We also as a village board reiterated it to them many times in public.

At one point in the discussion the 4 residents on the loop (not directly affected by the construction) challenged the board to bring sewer and water to them under the same program as well, even though they were not directly affected, the board agreed, the cost of that was approximately $100,000 to do the loop, money was to come from our sewer and water fund.
As we have worked through the process of hooking residents up we were repeatedly challenged and questioned as to our competence by two residents who live on the street. They were the only two residents against the proposal the village developed to connect the residents. We try to do the right thing so we paused and evaluated their concerns, ultimately deciding to move ahead with our proposed program. In the interim these two residents decided to be critical of our Public Works director, our Village Administrator and our Village Engineer, along with the village board.

If we had voted the issue four months ago (in my opinion), the program would have passed more then likely 4-2. However when I moved it for a vote on December 4th the motion failed with 5 No's (Newby, Shaw, Del Prato, Blum, Brubaker) 1 Yes (Perkowitz). I was extremely disappointed in the board's action. My opinion was that the two residents got the trustees irritated with them hence the vote.

By refusing the program we are making each resident on Dawn Marie pay a couple of thousand dollars because we could not agree on the program. The original estimates were low and and I would guess that this issue would cost the village or the residents if we don't reconsider about $42,000.

My immediate intention was to veto it, however I am unable to veto inaction, (I can only veto action). I decided to have the issue on the agenda at the next board meeting, and ask the board to reconsider the action.

ACT Two
On Monday night the village board was confronted by an angry group of Dawn Marie residents who were holding letters we sent them describing the program. Some even quoted my blog post of a few years ago to me. After public comment was over, we worked through the agenda until we reached the Dawn Marie reconsideration. Since the prior motion had been defeated it had to be motioned and seconded by two of the majority (i.e the No votes at the last meeting Newby, Shaw, Del Prato, Blum, or Brubaker). I asked the trustees to reconsider the motion based on three major issues.

1. It was and is the right thing to do, we told them we would do and we need to do it.


2. I asked them to set aside the feeling they had for the two gentlemen who while well-intentioned, had caused the program to bog down until it reached the negative vote at the last board meeting


3. Any funds dispersed by the village would eventually be returned to the village in the form of recapture from the users downstream of Dawn Marie in the SW Quadrant.

There was a lively discussion after that, with Trustee Brubaker advocating getting Ryland to pony up more money based on his reading of the annexation agreement, while I thought that was an excellent idea, I still felt that we should take care of the residents now, and go after Ryland ourselves afterwards. His contention was that by not passing the connection program, we give up some leverage on Ryland. He may be right.

After quite a bit of discussion the roll was called and all 5 trustees present (Newby, Shaw, Blum, Brubaker and Perkowitz) voted yes!