Vienna trustee defends work of water advisory board

Lack of quorum at many meetings cited as issue

WARREN -- Vienna Trustee Phil Pegg sought to defend the work of the Trumbull County Water Advisory Board at Tuesday's Trumbull County Commissioners workshop.

The water board's chairman, Rex Fee, resigned from his position last week, noting the difficulty it had in getting enough members to meet to have a quorum vote. The board's mission is to find ways to reduce spending in the county's water department.

Pegg noted the board had a number of meetings during which they did not have a quorum, which would have allowed the board to vote on recommendations to provide the commissioners on proposed rate changes.

It faced increasing problems because several communities -- Warren and Niles -- increased the rates that they were purchasing water.

"There were three districts served by Niles," Gary Newbrough, director of the county sanitary sewer department said. "In the southeast, the rate went from $4.40 to $4.62 per thousand gallons, Niles went from $5.60 to 5.88 per thousand gallons and Mineral Ridge went from $6.50 to 6.83 per thousand gallons.

"The Warren supplied districts went to $6.44 per thousand," he added.

Pegg said the water pass through rate increase will be 43 cents per 1,000 gallons for each of the districts.

"Yes, we did not have a quorum," he said. "Right now, you're operating at a loss."

"I'm not quite sure why you need trustees to tell you those are the numbers because you have an employee (Newbrough) who knows those are the numbers," he said.

The board also discussed water tower maintenance.

"There is no water tower maintenance program," he said. "The cost of a water tower is about $11 million each. The county has seven water towers."

Pegg said there is a company that will do water tower maintenance.

He also noted that the advisory board had a meeting at which there was discussion about looking at regionalization of the water district. It was determined that it would not be a good idea to pursue that course at this time.

"I don't understand the fear of talking about it," Pegg said. "We were to look at options to reduce costs."

He noted there are some members of the advisory board that do not believe it has the support of the county commissioners.

"Several members felt that we were being used as a rubber stamp of the commissioners," Pegg said. "It is not the commissioners raising your fees, it is your trustees."

He noted that the passthrough rate increase and the maintenance of the water towers are needed now.

Commissioner Rick Hernandez responded that when Commissioner Tony Bernard and he first joined the board, they were hit with a sanitary district basically going broke.

"For 10 years, the rates would just remain stagnant," he said. "We had to raise rates or we would lose sanitary. I don't know if there is some sort of grant for this kind of thing."

Commissioner Denny Malloy said they formed the advisory committee so people could see how they were doing things.

"We did not have a quorum," Malloy said. "We had no feedback."

The board also did not have a forum at the most recent meeting, but it was the same night as a competing meeting for trustees.

"If we put it on the ballot tomorrow, we would have pushback from some of these townships that were vocal before about raising the rates," Malloy said. "We formed the commission to do their thing. We had our representation there. We hope this continues."

Brookfield trustee Daniel Suttles said his residents were upset about the last increase.

"The one thing I looked at from the trustee perspective, is any time you have a rate increase, you have to look at the other side. I think the first thing the board needed to explain was the operation of the department," he said.

He wanted to know the employee costs.

"Is the cost of employees higher than it should be?" Suttles said. "How many inspectors are needed? I did not know this as a board member. That was not explained to me."

Malloy said the board was created to know the need for a rate increase before the commissioners would know it.

Commissioner Tony Bernard said he thought the board was created to find cost savings that they could bring back to the commissioners.

"I don't think that was done from day one," he said. "We need the members of the board to show up and take it seriously."

Bernard noted that he is in favor of a 43-cent passthrough rate increase at this time.

"I would like to see the board stay intact," he said.

Bernard does not believe the question about regionalization or the maintenance of the water towers should be the role of the advisory board.

Hernandez said some of the trustees assigned to the board were not reelected or chose not to run for another term.