Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Sewage-plant plans overhauled
Pickerington tosses $11 million proposal; may mean end of Hickory Lakes deal
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Kirk D . Richards
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH





The Pickerington City Council has repealed an ordinance for an $11 million sewage-treatment plant and will rebid the project to seek a lower price.

The action signals a political shift in development philosophy with a new administration and new council members.

Mayor David Shaver was elected in November on a campaign of restrained growth, and some residents are concerned that a new plant would justify building more homes.

The change, the council members concede, means the city likely will miss out on an opportunity to buy Hickory Lakes, a mostly undeveloped wetland in neighboring Violet Township.

A program sponsored by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency allows operators of sewage plants to divert interest payments on their state loans to pay for projects that preserve wetlands.

But a less-expensive plant probably would not generate enough money to cover the $3.3 million price of Hickory Lakes.

Shaver has called the old plant proposal costly and unnecessary.

Frank Wiseman, the service director whom Shaver named interim city manager, and engineers studied the project and determined that a plant of the same size ?— handling 3.5 million gallons of sewage a day ?— could be built for about $2.5 million less.

The proposal to rebid the project garnered swift support from the council members who have held their seats for less than a year.

However, the two longerserving council members ?— Doug Parker and William Wright ?— are going along grudgingly.

''Nothing they?’re doing guarantees we?’ll save one penny,'' Parker said.

He asserts that the new council members who campaigned against a plant are starting to understand that one is necessary and are ''trying to save face'' with a cheaper proposal.

Wright considers $900,000 in what some say are savings to be a deferment on necessities that will have to be built in the future, likely at a higher cost because of inflation.

Recently elected Councilman Ted Hackworth prefers that the city delay payments on parts of the project that are not needed immediately.

''The goal, at least from my perspective, is to lower the initial cost so we won?’t have this large amount of debt upfront,'' Hackworth said. ''With inflation, that may cost more, but then we?’re not tied to having 300 homes a year just to pay off debt.''

Officials agree that the city must expand its sewer capacity.

Hackworth, chairman of the service committee, said the plant can handle 1.2 million gallons a day and is treating 1.1 million gallons.

''We?’re within 100,000 gallons of approved capacity,'' said newly appointed Councilman Mitch O?’Brien, who took the seat Shaver vacated upon becoming mayor. ''With the building permits that already have been issued, expansion is necessary.''

Parker objected to O?’Brien?’s appointment partly because O?’Brien circulated a petition in an effort to kill the former sewage-plant plan.

''We?’ll have to build a new sewer plant without getting 87 acres of green space for free,'' Parker said. ''They made a mistake, and they ought to have the guts to admit it.''

Meanwhile, the central Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club has joined residents who oppose plans for the plant, Sierra Club spokeswoman Pat Marida said.

Noting that Pickerington?’s plant has been found in violation of its Ohio EPA permit for dumping inadequately treated sewage, Marida said, ''They need to upgrade the plant that they have and not necessarily expand.''

Dispatch reporter Geoff Dutton contributed to this story.

krichards@dispatch.com



http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/03/03/20040303-D3-00.html








By All Flushed out

Do the Math!!






Its a shame Mr. Richards?’ story didn't depict the WHOLE story. Does the plant need to be expanded? Of course. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or newspaper reporter to figure that out. The underlying question in the referendum petition was did it need to be expanded to the magnitude originally proposed? The answer to that question now is obviously NO.



The petition, although it never left City Hall, was completely successful. As Mr. Richards reported, depending on who you ask, the magnitude, scope and most importantly, the cost has been reduced dramatically. Therefore, the petition, its organizers and its circulators have made a serious impact on saving the citizens of Pickerington money. Congratulations Mr. O'Brien for saving me money before you were appointed to Council. Keep working the same way now that you did then. I congratulate you for getting involved and trying to make a difference.


Please don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors presented by the residual council members. To determine the number of homes you have to build per year to pay off the sewer plant debt, take the total cost, interest, Hickory Lakes, etc., and divide by the number of years to get to the cost in additional homes. Just the lowest number mentioned so far of $900,000 divided by 30 years is $30,000 per year. How many homes have to be built to pay $30,000 per year out of their sewer fees? Take the highest number in the story and you get over $83,000 per year. That is just principal. I don't know what the numbers would be when you add in interest and Hickory Lakes. Then take the $83,000 per year and divide by the amount that each house generates in revenue to get the number of houses. Is 500 per year acceptible? 400, 300? If rebidding the contract at a reduced cost, whether it is deferred or otherwise reduces the initial debt to a point that the schools can handle the number of houses to be built per year, then we all won.


Of course, we can all get in line with Mr. Parker's thinking and rebid the plant with the solid gold toilet seats it originally had and then when the people revolt over the numbers of houses we have to build to pay off the debt, we can go ahead and volunteer instead to have our sewer rate raised by a factor of 10.


We're just talking simple math here folks.



By No Math Whiz

Starting over

What is wrong with Parker? He claims this new council ''made a mistake and they don't have the guts to admit it.''

It seems to me that the new council members are trying to undo him and his previous council buddy's mistake. Clearly the Parker council tried to put a over kill plant into operation prior to this new council taking office.

Thanks to Mitch O'Brien and Rita Ricketts for their hard work in delaying the signing of that waste water expansion construction contract long enough so that the new council could get a little more control over what the Sewer users in Pickerington are going to be charged in the coming years.

One of the problems facing the new government is that the previous Parker government already spent $800,000 on engineering for the this plant to increase its capacity up to 3.5 MGD. To design a smaller version would require the process to start all over again. That would probably cost at least another $500,000.

I understand that even with the last plant the city had an amortization schedule that would have required the city issue 150 sewer taps per year for the next 20 years to pay for the previous design. What they didn't publicly say was that would also increase the sewer user fees to existing users thus having the current city users pick up a big chunk of the new plant's debt.

From the article it seems that they are trying to reduce the front end debt so that they can lower the needed sewer taps each year and reduce any reliance on current sewer user fees for debt service.

The Parker council did raise the sewer tap fees last October to $3,600 and they added a 3% increase each year there after. If any of you have a financial calculator then by just increasing the tap fee a little more and schedule the yearly increases just maybe a quarter of one percent a year they could greatly reduce the pressure off of the user fees for debt service. That would also require a lower front end debt which the current council is trying to do.

I believe the Parker council will come unglued if the current council just walks away from this plant expansion. Clearly if the numbers don't add up I believe the current council will dump the idea and start all over. If they can't get the costs down so that future sewer tap fees pay for the plant expansion then I think they will start all over.