Wow! Two episodes of OPEN AGENDA released in the same week! In the most recent episode (S2 E23) we explore plans to extend sewer & water service to rural villages across Wicomico County. How will we pay for projects that will ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars? How will individual homeowners be able to afford the cost of service connections and abandoning their septic systems? Why hasn't a qualified Sanitary Sewer Commission yet been established to oversee these complex and expensive projects that will profoundly effect your pocketbook and the County's future? Additionally, we discuss the County Executive's plans to progressively close the landfill to commercial trash haulers and how this will adversely affect homeowners, businesses and public health. We also address the impacts to general aviation at the Salisbury Airport resulting from a new Fixed Base Operator (FBO) contract that may restrict the ability of aircraft owners to obtain necessary maintenance services.
Open Agenda S2 E23 Sanitary District and Closing the Landfill
Show Transcript
Disclaimer: The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain spelling or contextual errors.
You're watching Open Agenda. Here's our
host, Joe White.
Welcome to Open Agenda. I'm your host,
Joe White. In this week's episode, we
want to fill you in on some information
we're receiving about the sanitary
district, the fixed-based operations out
at the airport and some of the the
information we've been receiving about
the landfill. In order to talk about
that, I brought in Dr. Joe Venosa from
Salsbury. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mike
Goldberg from Delmare. Thank you for
coming out. Howdy. county. So Mike, you
have done some research about the
fixedbased operation uh out of the
airport and basically it's this is a new
company come in to replace Bayland
Aviation Azure, right? Yes. They've
actually acquired uh Bayland Aviation
that will frequently include flying
lessons. Okay. Um the uh the fuel
pumping um I believe and I could be
wrong. I believe that is being
maintained directly by the airport. The
new the new station is. Yes. Yes. Uh
which is under construction and it may
be substantially complete at this point.
I saw it a few weeks ago. Um the big
question is the mechanics services.
There's one the ability to have
independent contractors out there.
Exactly. You know there's there's one op
one uh very wellqualified mechanic who's
been operating out there for about 10
years. His lease is a year-to-year
lease. Um it uh expires at the end of
this year. He doesn't know if he's going
to be there or not. There seems to be a
bit of a communication problem. Well,
you you went out and did you met with
some of the pilots and you you
interviewed not one from Salsbury, but
one from the in the surrounding area who
flies into Salsbury sometimes. I've been
a pilot since the late ' 90s. do all my
own maintenance because the airplane
that I built uh is an experimental and I
am licensed by the FAA to do all of my
own maintenance on my airframe. I keep
my airplane in Delaware. When I first
moved here, um Salsbury airport did not
have hangers available. Recently, I was
considering moving my airplane to the
Salsbury hangers. Salsbury has uh FAA
flight facilities, uh instrument
approaches, gasoline on the field. I'm
reconsidering that due to uh some
conversations that I've had with a
number of folks that are currently at
Salsbury regarding the ability to do my
own maintenance. Um, since I'm
authorized to do my own maintenance by
the FAA,
but would be prevented from doing my own
maintenance at Salsbury, it really
doesn't make sense any longer to
consider moving there. Azure, they will
be a monopoly on Salsbury airport and
the current maintenance facilities that
are available to aircraft owners um are
going to be limited and reduced uh and
and you'll have to rely on Azure to do
your maintenance. With that kind of
movement away from general aviation
friendliness,
you're going to be driving aircraft
owners away from the Salsbury airport.
Yes, I believe it'll be a disincentive
for aircraft owners to remain and or
arrive finding out about finding out
about what has been going on and what is
going on. Uh, I have not seen anything
published in
either
news media or papers or anything like
that. Most of what I've heard has been
word of mouth. A monopoly could increase
the cost. Um, it really depends on what
Azure wants to do. You know, after
speaking with a number of general
aviation pilots, some of them keep their
private aircraft at uh at Salsbury and
they're questioning whether or not it
makes sense to do that because if you
need mechanic services, you know, you
don't want to have one choice. You don't
want a monopoly. You know, you need you
want to go to the guy that you've been
working with who who knows your
particular airplane and has been working
on it for 10 years. But they're not.
They It appears they're not going to
have that option because Asia um
apparently is going to be responsible
for the three existing tea hangers. So
they're going to decide who can go in in
and do work and who can't. Uh some uh
aircraft mechanics are mobile. They pull
up in a truck, you know, they they do
what they need to do either in the
hanger or out on a concrete pad off the
tarmac. But they're not likely to be
able to work inside the hangers now.
Seems like they're not going to be able
to do that. Well, so Joe, speaking about
moving to Salsbury, moving some trash
into Salsbury at the at the Wakcomo
landfill seems to be cleans and trash.
Uh there's been some rumblings that we
may be seeing the landfill not open
every day. Yeah, that's what we're
hearing. So, uh so I mean the the the
tipping fees that the county executive
proposed in her budget, actually the
budget numbers had it at 100. Yes. They
said that they needed to be at least at
88 and uh the county council has elected
to move that rate at least to January
1st. So halfway through the fiscal year,
right? But uh I guess to maybe make a
point, prove a point or save a few
dollars, we're going to close off the
landfill. Yes. So imagine the situation,
right? If you're a restaurant owner or a
commercial hauler for that matter, um,
and you get word that the county
executive is now deciding what days
businesses can actually drop off their
trash, um, I don't know if anybody uh
has seen this, but if you ever get a
chance, Google New York City 1977
uh, garbage strike. Um, because that
very well could be what parts of the
county look like if the executive has
her way. Um the idea this would be like
the recycling center she just closed
down overnight uh two years ago. A lot
of people forgot about that. Yeah, I
didn't. But um yeah um that was fun. It
it it was um that's a word. And I think
what people need to appreciate is that
if the county executive is going to make
this decision to just sort of randomly
choose certain days or times where
haulers and restaurant owners and other
people have to drop off their trash,
it's going to have a huge impact not
only on their businesses and their
logistics, but it's it's ultimately not
really going to achieve I think what the
goal is. And I think it just would be
double the trash come on Tuesday, right?
Exactly. Yeah. Meanwhile, you have trash
sitting in dumpsters over the weekend
potentially. at at restaurants. And it's
interesting, too, cuz there seems to be
a lot of questions about whether or not
this is actually done because of a
logistical need or just sort of for
spite um because of the uh well, let's
let's just be honest. I mean, she was
out maneuvered pretty badly at that
meeting. You know, fun to watch, but
these are real issues. And so, if she's
going to go that route of of having the
government come down and put its, you
know, jack boot on the neck of every
hauler and business because she's trying
to prove a point. But the other aspect
that they talked about at the June 17th
meeting is is the sanitary district.
Yeah. An update on countywide water and
sewer. Uh good afternoon. Adam Corey,
executive director of environmental
services, Department of Public Works,
and Mike Sway, deputy director of public
works. Amanda Pollock. I'm with the
Center for Watershed Protection. Paul
Wilbur, County Attorney. Um, our
presentation today highlights key
recommendations that will guide
municipal and county infrastructure
expansion, major sewer extension
projects in Salsbury, Parsonsburg,
Parsonsburg, Pittsville, and the West
Side regional system. I want to bring in
Bob Taylor and and and I want to talk a
little bit about the nuts and bolts of
our sanitary district. That's sewer and
water. And Mike, I want to ask you some
questions later about how the RFPs, the
requests for proposals have been written
for the engineer studies and and then I
want to bring Bob in, talk about that,
and then I'd like for the three of us to
get back together and really kind of
have a chance to digest what Bob said
from a average citizen standpoint. All
right. Can you guys stick around? All
right. Mike, you stay and we're going to
bring Bob in. Okay. Okay. So stay with
us. We're going to bring Bob Taylor in
to talk about water and sewer throughout
the county and for city residents. Stay
with us. We'll be right back.
Welcome to Open Agenda. I'm your host
Joe White. The June 17th County Council
meeting, they had a work session to
discuss the sanitary district and some
of the engineering plans. One person in
particular spoke about the sanitary
district. Mr. Bob Taylor. Thank you for
coming out. Y Mike Goldberg, thanks for
being here. Bob, you spoke about the
sanitary district and specifically just
the setup and not just the engineering
part of this. So, I want to I want to
find out a little bit more. Why are you
concerned about how the sanitary
district is getting set up? Why why do
we even need one? Well, I mean, that's a
good question. Let's start with a little
bit of background. Okay. Um, one point
that's I think very interesting. About
45% of the residents of the county
already have water and sewer service.
Okay? They live in municipalities by and
large. We also have some uh
neighborhoods that are near city that
Salsbury and Delmare but not in those
towns that have urban services districts
over the years. So altogether roughly
half of the people in the county already
have this service. So what we're talking
about is really everywhere else. Now, um
they did a study, this has gone on for
years about why what we should do. Uh a
lot of these, uh homes and neighborhoods
that are outside of the the towns have
older septic systems that are failing.
Um they're also concern about
groundwater and even uh bay pollution
from the septic systems. 2021, George
Miles and Bureau finished the water and
sewer master plan for the county.
recommendations were for um in areas
where there are septic systems and the
the areas nearby a municipality to try
to tie into that municipality and then
in the rural village areas to look at
having standalone wastewater systems. So
that's been the driving force for years.
Let's do something about that. If you
have a failing septic system on a lot
that's not large enough for an
additional septic system to be
installed, you're kind of stuck. you're
you're going to be pumping out like a
holding tank for ever and ever. You got
a you got a real problem if you don't
have reserve space for another drain
field. Um there's a lot of problems you
can have, including environmental
problems, including environmental
problems. County Council commissioned uh
George Miles and Bureau, an engineering
firm here that has a lot of experience
in sewer and water um to do a master
plan for the entire county as to what
would need to be done to essentially
address these problems that I've
mentioned. And they came up with two
general solutions. One is there are a a
large number of homes up in the county
that are very close to the
municipalities but have not gotten the
urban services. They they figure there
total of about 10,000 homes. So that's
number one. And they recommended they
can be connected to municipal systems.
Then you get into a little bit further
out and what are sometimes called urban
villages. And just to identify a few,
you've got Parsonberg, Nanako, Balve,
Tyaskin. They're all essentially what
they call rural villages. They're they
developed over the years into small
areas, but they're not incorporated. So
anyway, that's that's the nature of the
problem. And just to identify some of
the costs they had, Mardella Springs,
for example, if a plant were to be put
in there to handle their uh 320 EDUs, I
might point out an EDU is a theoretical
250 gallons per day. EDU stands for
equivalent dwelling unit. Equivalent
dwelling unit. The idea the idea is that
a typical dwelling unit uses 250 a day.
And the George Miles and Beure study
recommended in these areas that I've
mentioned that by and large they would
have their own new uh sewer treatment
plants. Um one for each area. One well
one for each area. Now there are decided
to go the sanitary district route to do
this infrastructure upgrading that I've
mentioned. And how did they do that? Was
it a legislative move or a referendum?
It was a legislative move. What they had
to do was uh request special legislation
just for the county from the general
assembly. They got that two years ago uh
to establish a sanitary district. They
could have gone other routes. They could
have had just the county just doing it
with the public works department. They
could also form a a sewer and water
authority. There are several ways you
can do it. But they chose the san they
chose the sanitary district. So what
makes the sanitary district unique?
like, well, how is this supposed to be
set up in in in a general overview,
smaller counties usually start with a
sanitary district. Okay. Some of them
still have it. Somerset County, for
example, has had one for a number of
years. And you've worked with them?
Yeah, I' I've been involved with
developers. Okay. Uh with the and and
owners with the um Somerset County
Sanitary District. State legislation
essentially spells out how the sanitary
district operates. So, how should it
operate? Well, I mean to to form it, all
you have to do essentially is file
articles of incorporation to incorporate
the sanitary district as a Maryland
corporation. So, it's an independent
agency. It's independent of the county.
Okay. Yeah. Now, but that doesn't seem
to be the way it's being run right now.
Well, it's not being run right now at
all because they hadn't formed it yet.
Okay. Who should form it? Well, the the
the county council just decides by
resolution or ordinance to uh uh record
a articles of incorporation with the
state. And who would be on the sanitary?
It's three three people. And that's what
ours is right now. If they want to form
it, they have to do an articles of
incorporation that name three
commissioners. Now, they're not voted
on. They're they're appointed by the
county council. That's right. Uh it's
it's a county council matter under the
state law. um they haven't done it. Now,
as we get into some of these projects
that are now in the in the pipeline, so
to speak, um one question I have is do
we even need a sanitary district to do
them? So, when we first met with you
last year, we went through this
implementation strategy. You know, this
is a long effort. This is many, many
years. So, I five projects that we're
going to talk about. First, just the the
sanitary commission. The first step was
to get the state to enable that. So that
legislation has been the last time we
were before you was last December to
talk about the structure of a sanitary
commission and at that point what we
were discussing was more of an advisory
board structure. We've made some
adjustments. We need to come back for
the actual uh legislative process to
have that adopted and hopefully that
will be in the next few months. And then
the next step would be to be approving
sanitary commission members and then
establishing that sanitary commission
and and having their first meeting and
establishing all their bylaws and then
beginning to have quarterly sanitary
commission meetings is now worded and
it's you know being reviewed by the the
county attorney is that instead of
having an advisory board have three
members that are appointed by the
executive and confirmed by the council
that would be the sanitary commission.
members, they would meet quarterly at a
minimum and then that all of their
review is under the public works
department. So they would be making
their recommendations to public works
and public works staff would be
presenting to the sanitary commission
when they have projects because for
example one of the projects is to tie in
several areas around Salsbury into the
Salsbury system. Now the way they do
that is the county puts in the lot mains
and ties in the homes and then they give
the mains to the city. Okay. And the
city operates them. The Salsbury sewer
extension projects. We had worked with
the health department to look at areas
adjacent to Salsbury city limits where
there's some potentially failing septics
or issues with septic systems. Part of
the reason is because they can all be
served by gravity sewer. So they're a
little bit easier to serve than if a
large pumping station would be required.
Okay. It's done at the county's expense.
Now they can get grants for it. They can
get loans for it. They can take it out
of PGO. That's their pro. That's their
matter. Recently applied to hire an
engineering firm to do the design. The
bids were opened in May and a selection
committee has been reviewing those
proposals. You funded design as part of
the FY25 budget. We did include
reimbursement for design in the request
to the state for the SRF funding. The
way that funding works is uh
jurisdictions are required to forward
fund design. So you have to pay for
design first. Once a project goes for
construction bids, that's when SRF
funding is taken to the Maryland Board
of Public Works and then you can start
seeking reimbursement for design. So,
we're still waiting. The the July
milestone is when MDE will announce what
projects get funded this year. So, we
don't know yet if this if construction
and this project will get funded. But
either way, you needed to forward fund
design. If we don't get funded this
year, we'll be applying again next year
and you would be reimbursed for that
design when the project gets funded. You
know, you're you're able to at this
point fund design, which is wonderful.
construction and I'll show you the cost
in a few minutes is much greater. We
will need support from the state and
others. So, but you're also saying that
line sewer lines will be put in using
whole county taxpayer money. How does
that money get recouped? Is there is
there a hookup fee? Well, what what what
I'm I'm concerned about as a city
resident, I mean, I'm already paying
water and sewer. I've had it for years.
I get no benefit out of tying in these
areas around Salsbury or for that matter
anywhere else in the county and uh under
state law and this is common throughout
the country. Uh sanitary districts and
water districts too are intended to be
paid for by the people who use it
benefit from it. Essentially an
enterprise fund type operation not by
the there's there are already part of
the county that are serviced by the
city. They're called, you had a term for
urban services districts. So, urban
services districts, they they already
are hooked into the city. It's an
agreement that you said goes back
sometimes 40, 50 years. Well, this
started in the late 50s or early 60s.
And the city did an agreement with the
county to tie in lines uh wiring
annexation. In other words, without
requiring the property to be brought
into the city. Now, this project around
Salsbury would essentially be almost the
same as the urban services districts.
Okay? In other words, the county puts in
the infrastructure, gives it to the
city, the city operates it, builds the
the users uh for it, uh charges, in the
case of the city. Um they would charge a
connection fee of about $6,000. Do they
pay the same for water and sewer that
people who already live in the city do?
They pay at a higher rate. Okay. Yeah,
they pay. Do you think they know that?
Like this is like, hey, we're going to
put this pipe in your house, but you're
going to get I don't know what they know
because most of the public discussion
that's been done doesn't really get into
the costs. There's going to be a tie-in
fee, a connection fee, and it's called a
u um a tip tie-in fee, tap in fee, and
they total about $6,000 per home. Okay,
if you're outside of the city, the rates
are going to for usage are going to be
twice what the city rates are. So, this
would fall under Salsbury's out of town
service agreement. So, there's an outof
town service agreement that residents
would be asked to sign. Do they will
they be uh responsible for a water and
sewer bill just as they are now with two
to three times the normal? Okay. One and
a half to two times. One and a half and
a half. Yes. But yes, there would be
they would be build. We would need to be
explaining to them that they would have
an invoice. So that's what needs a lot
of outreach. A lot of outreach. What if
you have a neighborhood that says, "No,
I don't want to. I don't want to be an
urban service. I don't want that water
bill." How do you compare? Part of that
will be leaning heavily on the health
department where they identified the
areas. They'll have to talk through what
the alternatives are. If their septic
systems absolutely fail, they don't have
reserve areas and they're having to
enter into pump and all agreements. that
will be much more expensive and not
sustainable in the long term. But I
would just estimate that their annual
sewer bill is going to be in the range
probably of 1,200$1,500
at our current rates. Okay? Of course,
they're going to go up. So, there's
going to be uh a shock to some extent of
people who even if they don't have to
pay the $6,000
tap in and connection fee, they're
definitely going to have to pay the
consumption fee. And there's two other
areas, right? The the Parsonsburg line
that would come from Pittsville and then
possibly something on the west side.
We'll talk about Parsonsburg Pittsville
next. The the map here is Maryland
Department of Planning's map of priority
funding areas. And again, that's
critical here because Parsonsburg is
designated as a rural village. And so
only that rural village area is what is
eligible for state funding. So
Pittsville is currently going through a
process of upgrading their wastewater
plant and they have submitted a
preliminary engineering that included an
allocation to serve some septic systems
outside of Pittsville limits. Pittsville
applied to USDA and MDE. They were able
to take our per and use that as an
amendment so they could show the need
for service outside of city limits. So
the health department identified two
mobile home parks between Parsonsburg
and Pittsville that have shared
facilities that need to be tied in as
well. So that that was included in the
in the preliminary engineering report to
make it very clear. You know, we've met
with Pittsville a number of times. We
cannot proceed with the Parsonsburg
project until Pittsville's wastewater
plant is upgraded. Pittsville's
wastewater plant needs to get funded
first and they need to be rolling before
we apply for Parsonsburg. The next
project is the most complex. Looking at
the west side of of the county and sort
of a a more regional basis. So knowing
that Mardella Springs is the only
incorporated municipality that does not
have municipal water or sewer system, we
wanted to look at not just Mardella
Springs, but also Sharptown and Hein.
And mainly because Sharptown and Hebrron
are also just on the very early sides of
starting to upgrade their wastewater
plants. So they they both need upgrades
as well. So we had met with um Hebrron,
Sharptown, and Mardella town officials
when this first started back in 2023 and
and everyone agreed to let the county go
through this point of doing the
investigation. Does it make sense to
have one regional plant or just just you
know Sharptown and Mardella only? We've
looked at the San Domingo community and
then also where Mardella Middle and High
School have a wastewater plant. would
that be brought into the mix? It's going
to be important to kind of talk about
this the Nanakoke River wershed as a
whole because that's what they'll be
interested in is that nutrient balance
throughout the Nanakoke preliminary
engineering reports a bit more complex.
So, it's it's taking a while. We
actually just received a draft and we're
all going through that. It's it's uh
like I said, long and complicated and uh
I didn't even want to put in cost
numbers yet because we're still
reviewing it. So, it's it's not
finalized, but we're hoping within the
next month to finalize that and then to
go back and have meetings with the towns
before we take it to the next level and
start meeting with Maryland Department
of the Environment and Maryland
Department of Planning. So, at at this
point, I can't even necessarily say the
recommendations of the report because
we're we're still just diving. We just
received it and yeah, now out on the
west side, they've just had a uh study,
one of the contracts that Mike was to do
just an engineers's recommendation for h
how to handle that area. Um including
Mardella Springs, which does not have
any sewer. Now, uh they've also talked
about San Domingo, which is an area, you
know, near near Sharptown. Um the um
draft report has just come in from the
engineering firm. We don't know what it
says, at least I don't. Um, but it
wouldn't surprise me that for the same
reason to avoid having to put in a new
treatment plant around Mardella Springs
that the idea is to somehow tie it in to
either Hebrron or Sharptown and I
understand both of those municipalities,
their plants need to be upgraded. So I I
have a source in Sharptown and I
understand on the draft it they're
proposing to pump Mardella or at least
part of Mardella to Sharptown.
Sharptown's wastewater treatment plant
much like Pittsville's current one needs
to be replaced and Hein too. I I don't
and I don't know about Yeah. But those
are questions we should be asking and
and and folks in these small communities
like Hebrron and Sharptown who you're
you're paying part of your taxes right
now to keep your wastewater treatment
plant up and going is the is the
sanitary district that does not actually
exist are people who who aren't account
to to the to the voters are they being
asked to basically consume this sewage?
Well, there's another aspect of this
worth mentioning, and that is that when
you if you tied in, for example,
Parsonsburg into Pittsville, the amount
from Parsonsburg,
uh, based on the, um, master study that
George Miles and Bureer did would be
more than what the demand is now in
Pittsville. Yeah. So, it would more than
double, you know, what's being treated.
Um, and that's the same with, um,
Sharktown. Um and it's the uh Mardella
Springs would have more demand for sewer
service than Sharptown does right now.
And if you of course if you add in Sand
Domingo that throws in some more. I
don't know how much. And you got to
wonder is this even fair? You have these
municipal sewage treatment plants.
They're owned by the municipalities
and essentially they're going to be
forced to uh process sewage coming from
outside those municipalities. I think
the whole structure of the plan is
potentially problematic. We should be
looking at regional countyowned or uh
sewage treatment plants or owned by the
sanitary sewer district and that's what
George Miles and Bureau recommended.
Right. But I mean, but even above that,
currently, right now, we we have RFPs
and engineering dollars going out the
door to make plans for something that
does not suit the the comprehensive plan
that was put in place by GMBB. And at
the same time, we don't have a sanitary
district who's managing this affair. If
we wanted to build a toll bridge over a
body of water, they could set up an
incorporate a basically a toll
commission. They would have to collect
tolls. They would have to apply for
loans. They would build the bridge. They
would be responsible. Right now, we have
one branch of government that's off
doing one thing. Why we have our county
council that at least on the surface
doesn't seem like they're either one
finishing setting up the sanitary
district or explaining to us why they're
delaying it. And I'll go back to the 45%
almost 50% of the residents in the
county that already live in
municipalities or have services that we
pay for and we we get no benefit from
this. You're paying more for somebody
else's and as any cost accounting I mean
this should all be done on a cost
accounting ba basis so that the cost for
a particular thing Pittsville whatever
they do that those costs are isolated.
talk about the the RFPs and and what
you've seen as you know there's been to
date four different RFPs request for
proposals issued by the county for
engineering services um covering
different the three of them cover
different parts of the county and this
is separate from the master plan this is
separate the comprehensive plan which is
countywide and then these subsections of
the county you know such as Parsonsburg
Fitzville okay you know he um Mardella
Springs, Sharktown, etc. So, what are
you finding out when you're looking at
these RFPs? Well, they concern me a
little bit. um the way that the RFPs are
structur structured um there hasn't been
a lot of participation from qualified
engineering firms and I think one of the
reasons is is that the scope of services
that they're required to provide is very
broad and it's very difficult to
ascertain what your actual engineering
costs will be. These are all stipulated
sum lumpsum bids. You know, it's one
price to do everything. But for
instance, they in these contracts
include construction phase services.
That would be, you know, inspections uh
acting as a liaison
uh between the county and the
construction contractor. And it it's
very difficult to determine how much
that is going to cost. Typically an RFP
would say okay construction phase
services will require 100 hours of you
know an engineer's time you know 200
hours of a CAD technician etc. And you
would bid on that basis but what they're
doing here is just saying it just just
give us a price for construction phase
services
and and are we paying for this now?
We're not paying for it now, but when
the uh when the contracts are let and
couple actually three of them have been
let. It's only the comprehensive plan u
that has that has not been let because
all of the bids came in above budget. So
they rejected for the for for the comp
plan, right? Okay. But there's some
strange anomalies. For instance, you
know, these engineering contracts
provide for liquidate the damages for
late completion. You don't see that in
engineering contracts. That's something
that you would see in a contract for
construction, but not for engineering.
There's also requirement for performance
and payment bonds. Most engineering
firms can't get bonded. You know, that's
that's not part of what they do. Um why
that's included in the contract. Who put
out this RFP? This was put out by the
county. By by what part of the county?
By the uh Department of Public Works, I
must assume. Uh it just says the county.
Um I can I can maybe reflect on that.
During the discussion uh at the county
council last week, uh Amanda Pollock,
who used to be with George Miles and
Burr and used to also be the city's uh
public work, they that they drafted the
RFPs. Uh now that's you know what she
said. I don't know whether she drafted
all of them or But Amanda Pollock
doesn't work for the council and the
council's supposed to set up this
sanitary system. She's she's being been
retained apparently by the uh executive
branch of the county to do this. So
essentially she's she's well qualified.
She's she is I've worked with Amanda
before and I think she's very
wellqualified and you know pretty good
person all around. But I find it odd
that the that you have a third party, a
private firm who's putting this together
on behalf of the county who's, you know,
setting the rules, you know, issuing the
RFP when typically this would be done by
the Department of Public Works. But why
wouldn't it be done by the sanitary
commission? Because right now we don't
have a sanction. should not been set up
and it should have been by. So because
we don't have a sanitary commission
basically the executive's office is
driving this this bus and their and
their choice is to hire a third party
firm and at what cost? We don't know.
This should be the county council doing
this. You know, they're their one the
mandate has been given to the
legislative body. Well, what what should
citizens be asking right now? Well, I
mean, first of all, I think they're the
45% of us that live in areas and why why
should any of our tax money go for this?
Okay. What if you live in It's not going
to be reimbursed. What if you live in
Pittsville right now? What should you be
asking? I think I would be thinking in
Pittsville, if we're going to upgrade
our plant and we're going to have excess
capacity, we better start thinking about
how we're going to use that. Are we
going to give it away? Essentially, they
probably won't give it away. They'll get
some money back for it, but they won't
be able if they give it all away to do
any growth around Pittsville. What if
you live in Parsonsburg? Uh well, that's
a municipal village. Um and I think if
you need the service, if you if you have
failing septic, you're going to want
something uh one way or the other. Now,
how how whether you can afford it or
not, it's another question. I I'm going
to I'm going to question that point. And
I know we have lots in Parsonsburg right
now where we have abandoned homes that
they're not building on because they
don't have enough acreage there to have
both a well and a septic and have the
setbacks that you need. But if you put a
home there in an area where that that
that
family cannot afford the hookup fees and
uh and that sort of thing, then what
what do you have? You don't have a
resource at that point. You have a
liability. I Well, there's there's a lot
of questions to it and and a lot a lot
of it turns on how much do they get in
grants or loans that are just waved over
time.
If they get pennies from heaven and it
doesn't cost the the residents much,
well then it might be worth it. Those
are obligations that to date are
unfunded. We have no idea how much it's
going to cost. Well, well, thank you
both. I appreciate you coming in talking
about uh the sanitary district. I hope
some folks get out there and ask some
more questions. So stay with us. We'll
be right back.
Welcome back to Open Agenda. So in the
studio with me is Dr. Joe Venosa, Mr.
Mike Goldberg. Thanks for staying. Yes,
sir. Guys, we just had a chance to uh
hear Bob Taylor. I know it's a lot to
digest
everything he had to say, but at the end
of the day, we're talking about water
and sewer in parts of the county that
aren't currently served. Yeah. And a lot
of money being spent right now on plans.
And Mike, I I I want to get a little bit
more of your opinion about just as a
taxpayer in this county, like how do you
feel about where our money is being
spent? Well, I see a lot of money being
spent. How much? Have no idea. All I can
tell you is it's going to be a lot.
Look, we've been the county failed to
make these kinds of comprehensive plans
for sewer and water uh years ago. You
know, we are now in a position where
we're going to have to play catchup in
order to comply with with regulations
being handed down from Annapolis. So
where other municipalities
uh or counties, you know, across the
state, they've been on top of this for
many years, Wakcomo County has not. Even
Bob said Somerset County has been in
front of us for a long time. And you
know, they've they've got a lot of
issues because of their low elevations
there and high ground water and they're
spread out. Yep. Absolutely. And so in a
relatively few short years, I'm afraid
that we're going to have to be spending
literally hundreds and hundreds of
millions of dollars uh to to be able to
extend water and sewer to the population
centers throughout the county. How are
we going to pay pay for this? And the
irony too is that that doesn't actually
have any real relation to the the stated
goal that some people have said is that
this is about sort of helping to augment
and help build our quote growing
population. Because one of the things
that concerns me about this discussion,
it isn't just the fact that it's a
hodgepodge system where we're kind of
bringing in certain municipalities and
getting other ones to fund other places
like Pittsburgh via Parsonsburg. But
it's that in the end this is just
servicing existing homes. This is
nothing to do with building new units or
new developments. This is not to put a
new neighborhood in. So, so this is
really important. Anytime any citizen
out there, whether you're a renter or a
homeowner, you know, if you're in Wcomo
County and you hear about the
development of the water and sewer
plant, this has nothing zero to do with
actually building more housing stock
which would increase the tax base to
help offset the cost. Correct. what it
is doing, it's basically again once
again it's going to over overt tax the
people that do have homes or rent and it
doesn't do anything for you, you know,
the younger person that I tend to see a
lot in my line of work who might want to
stay whether it's cuz they're close to
home or because they want to stay here
and you have very few housing options.
Well, even like you're much like Bob,
you live in the city, right? And you're
already paying for water and sewer and
you're paying 6% more this year than
last year. Thank you, council. I don't
believe he could afford it at least. Oh,
I was born handsome. I was born
handsome, not rich. That's not what the
SU budget says. SU budget says he's
going to have to take less and pay more.
I got the payubs to prove it. Good. But
the but at the same time, you're already
paying for that. And you're also, as a
county resident, you're paying for these
engineering plans. And like Mike said,
you don't know how much. And we don't
even have a sanitary district to ask
questions to. Well, that's the thing,
right? Like sanitary commission. Yeah.
Where is our sanitary commission that
actually should be in the driver's seat
for this? Because if that doesn't
happen, then I guess the concern a lot
of us have is can the county executive,
be it this current one or a different
one, just put in people to then get this
process going and operate with no real
oversight. Okay. Well, let's play that
game. Let's fast forward a year. We'll
be right at the tip of the the high
election season. Okay.
And let's say this county executive is
running with a slate of candidates.
Yeah. Are you putting all of that those
decisions in one basket? Okay. Or
at the counterpoint to that is should we
be electing somebody a year from now who
has maybe has experience with this
because it seems like a lot would be
being dropped on their shoulders coming
in. Well, the elected officials and
their role is part of it. Again, from my
point of view and and I think all of
ours here is that we would wish that the
council would be more proactive now and
in getting the ball rolling to count to
to to be the check and balance. So, but
we don't have that check and balance,
you know, and and that is a problem. The
responsibility for this is essentially
falling on one person, the county
executive, who has no experience with
these kinds of issues.
Not that anybody on the council has, you
know, a great deal of experience
necessarily, but that's the purpose of
the commission where you would get
qualified people who can make, you know,
good decisions, you know. Yeah. I I
think we're also we're we're relying on
grants from both federal and state and
and the reality check here is we're
dealing with a state that is broke and a
federal government that depending on if
it's Tuesday or Thursday could take away
a grant. Well, one would think if you
wanted to implement a sanitary district
vision, you would have a sanitary
commission. You would think so.
Otherwise, it's just we're we're we're
shooting off in the hip. You know, they
say that failing to plan is planning to
fail. And right now, we don't have a
plan. And it if it doesn't fail, it's
darn sure going to cost a heck of a lot
more money than it should because of the
inefficiency that results from the
failure to plan. I think regardless what
you feel about all these issues, I
think, yeah, if you wait till the last
minute, it's going to cost more money.
It's just it always does. Your back's
against the wall. Let's keep our eye on
it and we'll update our viewers as uh
more information comes out. Thanks for
watching this episode of Open Agenda.
We'll be back next week with another new
episode.
The views of this program
