EFUD meeting, election, vote on $750,000 bond are Wednesday
May 9, 2023 | By Lisa Scagliotti Election season in Waterbury comes to a close this week with the annual meeting of the Edward Farrar Utility District on Wednesday.
Voters are asked to gather at 7:30 p.m. in person for the annual meeting. Meanwhile, ballots are available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the municipal offices on Wednesday for voters to fill several seats on the EFUD Board of Commissioners and to consider a request to bond for up to $750,000 to replace a water line that’s the oldest in the system.
The annual report for the district is available online and in paper copies at the town offices and in several locations around town (Waterbury Public Library, downtown Post Office, Maplewood convenience store, Kinney Drugs, Northfield Savings Bank, VSECU.) The town website also has the annual meeting warning and a sample ballot available in the Edward Farrar Utility District section under Boards.
Last week, the district commissioners held an informational meeting with just several members of the public in attendance. District resident Tom Gloor asked several questions related to the proposed bond and expressed disappointment that there appeared to be little public interest in the matter.
Last fall, EFUD held a special meeting where district voters were asked whether to approve the sale of the property at 51 S. Main Street previously used for the Waterbury town and village offices. Nearly 300 people attended and approved by a vote of 208-69 selling the parcel to Downstreet Housing & Community Development to build affordable apartments. The selling price was $138,000.
“This is a $750,000 bond,” Gloor said, recalling the high interest and participation around the property sale. “I don’t know if the public understands.”
Municipal Manager Tom Leitz offered a brief presentation about the water line project that the proposed bond would pay for. The 2,000-foot line connects a 1.4 million-gallon reservoir on Blush Hill into the system near the Best Western hotel. “It’s fairly simple in engineering terms. It’s a water line from point A to point B,” Leitz said.
The reservoir provides water into the system and is important for fire hydrant flows, noted EFUD Commission Chair P. Howard Skip Flanders.
Another line from the same water supply failed back in 2005 and has since been replaced, noted Public Works Director Bill Woodruff. That line runs down from Blush Hill under Interstate 89 and connects into the system near Anderson Field.
“This line is from the same era,” Woodruff noted.
The proposed water line replacement project’s path runs through the Ashford Lane-Kennedy Drive neighborhood where the streets are in need of repaving. Officials said the line project would likely be done later this year with the roads temporarily paved for the winter. The streets would be completely redone in 2024.
Leitz said the two lines connecting the reservoir to the water system are an intentional redundancy. He pointed to other Vermont municipalities dealing with various water line breaks in recent months. “By and large, Waterbury doesn’t have those challenges,” he said.
The system last month had a rare break in a line on Howard Avenue that took a couple of days to repair, Leitz said. Four people worked around the clock, he said, to get service restored to the neighborhood. Staying on top of maintenance and replacements such as the Blush Hill line is important to avoid emergency repairs that place an extra burden on staff, too, Leitz noted.
The cost of the bond will be about $50,000 in annual debt and that already is included in the 2023 EFUD budget, so it would not impact water rates, Leitz added. “I think it’s a good time to make this investment.”
Woodruff noted that an estimate for this line replacement five or six years ago was approximately $250,000, so waiting longer would likely mean an even more expensive project in the future.
The utility district is its own municipal entity. It was formed in 2018 after the former Village of Waterbury was dissolved. Its main function is to run the water and wastewater departments.
People living within the boundaries of the district may vote in its elections. A map outlining the district can be found online here. Anyone unsure of whether they live in the district may check with district and Town Clerk Karen Petrovic.
Prior to 2018, annual meetings and elections for Waterbury Village drew modest participation while utility district annual elections since EFUD was formed have been very low. In 2022, just 44 ballots were cast and that was more than double the number in 2021. Approximately 1,700 registered voters are in the district, Flanders said in answer to a question from Gloor.
“People will come out for what they care about,” Flanders added.
The election on Wednesday’s ballot will fill three of the district’s five seats on its Board of Commissioners. Three incumbents are running unopposed for re-election: Lawrence “Lefty” Sayah and Natalie Sherman for one-year terms, and Bob Finucane for a three-year term.
Writing in the annual report for his final year, former Municipal Bill Shepeluk, who retired at the end of 2022, reflects on the future of the EFUD commission, given the longtime service of current members.
“Who stands ready to take the leadership of the EFUD water and sewer systems in the next few years? Skip Flanders has served as the chairperson of the water system for 35 years now and has been involved in overseeing the sewer system since 1993. Bob Finucane has been an elected official overseeing water and sewer operations in two separate stints for a total of 24 years and Cindy Parks has served that board for 10 years. Lefty Sayah and Natalie Sherman are relative newcomers to the governance of utility systems, both taking on those responsibilities in 2018 when EFUD was created. Both, however, have served as elected Village officials for 29 and 12 years, respectively.
This historical perspective is not intended to suggest that any of these friends and neighbors are too old to serve or that they have served too long. It is meant to suggest, however, they have all done their duty. It takes time to build up some experience to effectively serve on any elected board. I dare say it takes longer when the members of the board have to become familiar not only with budgets and staffing, but also the significant regulatory environments in which water and sewer utilities must operate.
There are many well-qualified, young and middle-aged people who live within the EFUD district who can and must find the time to serve their community. They must do so to ensure EFUD will have high-quality, well-run water and sewer systems well into the future. Three seats on the commission come up for election each year. There is no need to wait until an incumbent decides not to run or until a vacancy occurs on the board before one might express interest. Talk to a commissioner or two about your interest. One or more of them even may be willing to step aside if they knew someone was willing to step up to serve in their place.”
In addition to the annual meeting, EFUD commissioners and members of the Waterbury Select Board will make a presentation at Wednesday’s meeting of the annual Wallace Community Service Award. That typically happens at March Town Meeting but it was not prepared in time this year.
The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Steele Community Room at the municipal offices. It will not be streamed via Zoom. Anyone wishing to attend must do so in person.
Read previous Waterbury Roundabout stories about the EFUD annual meeting here and here.