INSIDE

Customers query water policies

By Meg Olson

The water district is still waiting to find out if the state will allow more water connections for the Point, but commissioners are under growing pressure to decide how they will hand them out if they get any.

“We can’t give what we don’t have,” said Arthur Wilkowski at the November 10 water board meeting, responding to a growing pile of correspondence giving a variety of reasons the applicant feels they should be issued a water connection. Local realtor John Engelhard wrote on behalf of a client who is taking delivery of a log home in October but did not have a building permit appointment with the county in August or September, the criteria for the last few water connections water commissioners chose as they enacted the moratorium in August. He is asking that, if the county won’t let them at least build a foundation to put the home on, they be granted an exception to the moratorium or moved further up the waiting list which Engelhard writes he understands is now at “roughly 110 names.”

Another realtor, Paul Rusk, represented Robert Vaughn-Jones in asking why Vaughn-Jones was allowed to buy four water hookups but had three taken away despite having submitted his applications for all four building permits on September 8. “According to the language we used it was one for one,” said commissioner Madeleine Anderson. “You’re saying no matter how many appointments you have you get one hookup?” asked Rusk. “Yes,” answered Anderson and fellow commissioner Sue Johnson. “It’s not a written policy - it’s in the minutes of our August 11 meeting,” Anderson added.

Those minutes state that, “The commissioners decided the only people to receive hookups must have valid building permits or be on the office list of appointments for August and September. Anyone who says they have an appointment, changes their appointment, but is not on the list must leave their name and phone number. The application will be presented to the board and a decision will be made regarding their eligibility for a connection.” The minutes do not mention how many connections each individual may receive.

Wilkowski had a different reason for the district taking back three of the water meters issued to Vaughn-Jones. “He traded his appointment. He had an appointment in October. This was the first example of manipulation,” he said.

In another letter David DaSilva asked for two water connections to be issued based on two September permit appointments. Commissioners did not indicate any opposition to issuing these connections, but asked for more information regarding the status of the building permits.

Commissioners were also approached by Andrew Zablocki who has a friend willing to release her water connection for him to get one and Johnson said she saw no conflict, “if someone’s willing to give it up and it’s not coming from the pool. Let’s do it.” Wilkowski advised following the advice of district attorney John Milne and manager Dan Bourks. “We need to have a policy on this. We have to write a legal policy on how to do that,” he said. While in this case it appeared to only be a swap between friends, the possibility that existed speculators could sell connections from vacant land at inflated prices if the moratorium continued.

Wilkowski recommended a work session as soon as possible with Milne to draft policies regarding these issues and the larger issue of what the basis will be for issuing if the state allows a limited number of new connections until a greater water supply is secured.

He didn’t win a seat of the water board but Snider Vick is still making his position on the issue known: “Continue the distribution of remaining and newly acquired connections using the same criteria” of giving connections to those with active building projects when the moratorium went into effect, he wrote in a letter to the board.

“I agree with him,” Johnson said. “I personally don’t like the lottery thing,” agreed Anderson. Milne had suggested the district take steps to insure that the constitutionally-protected equal rights to a shared resource of all property owner be protected by an unbiased system such as a lottery.

“If we do go to a lottery I’d like to see it with a caveat: you don’t build you lose it,” Johnson. “It may be possible to have a two tiered system and identify the people really caught in the twilight zone,” Wilkowski said.

Anderson reassured the audience that fair policies would be drafted to get their projects out of limbo. “Take a happy pill and don’t worry,” she said. The next meeting of commissioners will not be on the regular meeting date but on December 5 due to a schedule conflict.