http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070713/NEWS03/707130398
Orangetown to spend $46.9 million on sewer
project
(Original publication: July 13,
2007)
ORANGEBURG
- Despite strong protest from town residents, the Orangetown Town Board approved
an increase in funding for sewer infrastructure improvements from $34.9 million
to $46.9 million.
The board
voted 4-1 to boost funding for the sewer improvements at a special meeting
Tuesday night after a public hearing on the measure. About a dozen people spoke
at the meeting, many complaining about the project's
cost.
"The
increase is unwarranted and unexplained," said Carol Silverstein, a co-founder
of the Orangetown Civic Association, a group that has been critical of town
spending.
The
project's cost rose more than 30 percent because construction and material costs
have soared, said Ronald Delo, the town's director of environmental management
and engineering.
But some
residents questioned how the amount could rise so much. Ed Fisher, a former Town
Board member from Tappan, said the town failed to fund sewer projects over the
years because of a desire to keep the budget low, which may have contributed to
the current problems with the sewer infrastructure.
"I think
projects were neglected," he said. "I think the people who ran the sewer
department did what they could to hold this
together."
Fisher said
the board should have appointed a panel of experts to advise on the sewer
project instead of relying on a consulting company and the town's
engineer.
The Town
Board's special meeting Tuesday was held before a workshop meeting. It was not
videotaped as regular Town Board meetings typically are for airing on Channel
78.
Town Board
member Denis Troy cast the dissenting vote.
But he
protested when the town raised the funding for the project to nearly $35 million
in March 2006 and again Tuesday with the increase to $46.9
million.
"Intuitively, it strikes me as if spending is out of
control, and hopefully this is the last time they're coming in for any more
increases," he said.
Orangetown
is required to make improvements to its sewer system under a consent order the
state Department of Environmental Conservation issued in
2005.
The state
required Orangetown to correct recurring sewage overflows, including spills into
the Hudson River and
Delo said
the increased cost of the project was warranted because bids came in much higher
than expected based on a rise in costs of materials, including steel, concrete
and copper.
He said the
town tried several measures to reduce costs, including rebidding the project and
reducing the size of the contracts.
The town
also suffered a costly eight-month project delay when the DEC underwent
personnel changes, he said.
Town
Supervisor Thom Kleiner said that
"The
reasons we didn't (do more) is because we were trying to economize and get the
most out of the system before we had to do a major capital improvement project,"
Kleiner said.
"The
problem didn't happen overnight," he said. "Now, when people are on vacation,
you are in a rush to approve the increase."
Kleiner
said the town needed to act fast to comply with the consent order and to secure
a low-interest loan from the state that would save the town more than $17
million.
The
majority of the work - $42 million - was mandated under the consent
order.
The rest is
for items that would have needed repair in the next two years, and fiscally it
made sense to group those repairs together, Kleiner
said.
"We felt
collectively that we were faced with a very difficult and painful choice, but we
really had no good option," he said.
Reach Hannan Adely at hadely@lohud.com or
845-578-2439.