Utility district voters OK property transfer but opt to keep loan funds
May 13, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Former longtime Waterbury Village Trustees, Lawrence “Lefty” Sayah and P. Howard “Skip” Flanders are two members of the Board of Commissioners of the Edward Farrar Utility District. Sayah was re-elected to a one-year term on May 11. Photo by Gordon Miller
Participation in the annual Edward Farrar Utility District annual election more than doubled this week over previous years, but the total number of voters who took part could still fit on a school bus with plenty of room for more.
A total of 44 voters cast ballots in the election held Wednesday, re-electing three incumbent district commissioners who ran unopposed and approving four of the five articles up for consideration.
Since it was formed in 2018 following the dissolution of the village municipality, the utility district’s main function is to oversee operation of the municipal water and wastewater systems; it is funded by customer fees for those services.
Although approximately 1,500 people are eligible to participate in district elections, turnout remains chronically low as it was when the village municipality was in place. Last year, 21 people voted in the annual election; in 2020 there were 17 votes cast, according to district Clerk Carla Lawrence.
On the ballot’s Article 5, voters approved 24-20 transferring to the town of Waterbury ownership of four properties previously owned by Waterbury Village. District and town officials agreed that the water and sewer operations do not have a need for the properties and they presently are managed by shared town staff.
The parcels that would shift to town ownership are: the roughly 50 square-foot area with the Waterbury welcome sign near the roundabout; the .16-acre municipal parking lot on Elm Street adjacent to Prohibition Pig Brewery; the 1.3-acre Rusty Parker Memorial Park; and the approximate 40 acres along River Road where the Ice Center, dog park, playing fields, parking areas and trail head to the Perry Hill trail network are located.
The utility district also owns 51 South Main St., the property where the town offices were located before Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The building was razed and the lot has since been available for public parking. It is not included in the transfer article.
District commission chair Skip Flanders said commissioners want to give more thought to what to do with the property. They have signaled to Downstreet Housing that it could be considered for new housing.
The only article to fail was Article 4. By a vote of 25-19, voters turned down the proposal to transfer to the town government two loan funds previously held by the village and currently under utility district control: an Urban Development Action Grant fund and a Community Development Block Grant fund. The funds have been available to loan to businesses in the former village area of Waterbury. Under town management, they would be available to businesses in any part of the community.
The UDAG fund originated in 1984 as an incentive for Ben & Jerry’s Homemade to locate its ice cream factory in Waterbury. Once it was repaid, the fund has since been used as a revolving loan fund for a number of businesses in the village. As of the end of 2021, the fund’s value was over $1.7 million with $1.12 million in current loans and the remainder as $646,000 in cash and investments, according to the utility district annual report.
The CDBG fund is much smaller with a value just under $75,000 at the end of 2021. Of that, $72,000 is currently loaned to the Ladd Hall Partnership for the apartments it developed in a former state office building on South Main Street after Tropical Storm Irene.
In the informational meeting on May 3 prior to the utility district election, Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk said the funds have been “a big boon to the community” over the years.
In January during the town budgeting process ahead of Town Meeting Day, Shepeluk made the proposal to shift the funds to town management as one step toward eventually merging the utility district into town government. Town and utility district officials had already been discussing the property transfers last fall.
Shepeluk pointed out that moving the funds to town government would be nominal given that utility district voters are also town residents. He underscored that in the May 3 discussion of the utility district election articles. “You're really moving money from your right pocket to your left pocket,” he said. “I think it’s good for EFUD. I think it will be good for the town and I hope it gets approved.”
Asked Thursday about the election result rejecting the fund transfers, Flanders said he was pleased with the result. As it turned out, Flanders explained, the commissioners themselves had changed their view on the question after they approved the warning for the annual election.
Flanders said he and others voted against the measure because they felt the move was premature. “We got concerned about the future of the funds to turn them over now,” he said.
The timing concern has to do with the fact that the process has begun to find a successor to Shepeluk who is retiring at the end of 2022. Select board and utility district members have recently contracted with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to facilitate that search process and that has made the imminent transition more real, Flanders said.
“We’re pleased with how it’s been used over the years and we came to realize that Bill’s not going to be here to manage it,” he said of the $1.7 million revolving loan fund. “We felt it wasn’t right to transfer at this time.”
Without approval to transfer the loan funds a related measure now will not happen -- the utility district will not receive $600,000 in federal funds coming to the town as budgeted by the selectboard this year.
The property transfer and loan fund transfer articles were intended as steps toward ultimately merging the utility district with town government. During the town budget process, Shelepuk proposed and the select board approved allocating $600,000 of the $1.5 million the town is receiving from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to the utility district. The appropriation was intended to pay for upgrading and incorporating the water system for the Kneeland Flats Mobile Home Park into the utility district system and possibly some other upgrades to water lines along Route 100 depending on costs.
But the ARPA allocation to the utility district and the loan funds transfer were intended to go hand in hand. They were presented as a “quid pro quo” -- the ARPA funding allocation being contingent on EFUD district voters approving the loan funds being moved to town management.
“That does mean the town won’t transfer the $600,000 of ARPA funds to EFUD,” Shepeluk said Friday. “The transfer was contingent on the UDAG transfer only.”
Flanders said he accepts that consequence. “We expect to pursue other options” to move forward with the mobile home park system project, he said.
Meanwhile, the property transfers were not connected with the loan fund transaction. They can happen as specified in the article the voters approved, Flanders said, noting that they already are maintained by shared municipal staff.
Also on the ballot were two other articles and three seats on the utility district’s Board of Commissioners to fill. None of the elections were contested. Lawrence “Lefty” Sayah, Natalie Sherman, and Cindy Parks all received 40 votes. Sayah and Sherman were re-elected to one-year terms; Parks will start a new three-year term.
Voters also approved 43-1 Article 1 setting compensation for commissioners at $1,450 for the chair and $1,200 for each other commissioner. A sum of $1,650 also was approved for the district clerk/treasurer to include payments for 2020 and 2021 when the item was omitted from the ballot in error.
Article 2 was unanimously approved 43-0. It authorizes the district to borrow up to $200,000 for wastewater system repairs and upgrades in the coming year.
More information about the utility district is online at waterburyvt.com under the Departments heading. The 2021 annual report is online and printed copies are available at the town clerk’s office. It contains budget information and reports from the district commissioners and municipal manager.