‘Forever’ guarantee can’t get past WSD meeting rules
By Patricia Bogumil
Staff Writer
A former President of the Town of Waterford Sanitary District (WSD) found a gag order too hard to swallow at the commission’s March 7 monthly meeting.
As a result, former commissioner Dan Dickinson and his wife, Jan, left the meeting abruptly, taking with them a copy of the “forever” grinder pump guarantee that WSD commissioners have spent months looking for unsuccessfully.
Afterward, Dickinson shared his information with the Waterford Post.
Here and now
The Dickinsons brought with them a copy of a September 1988 letter issued by WSD to homes serviced by grinder pumps. The pumps move sewage up from low-lying properties into the main sewer line.
During the March 7 meeting, commissioners had acknowledged objections to new charges set to go into effect April 1 for the 302 original properties served with grinder pumps still owned by WSD.
These users insist they received guarantees in 1988 that WSD would pick up the maintenance and operation costs of these WSD-owned grinder pumps, forever.
But finding a copy of the so-called “forever guarantee” had proved to be elusive.
“If anyone has any documentation, we have not heard,” WSD President Bill Gerard told the crowd March 7.
“We have,” Jan Dickinson promptly told him.
But commissioner Jeff Santaga explained that audience members who are not listed on the meeting agenda can not speak at the commissioners’ meeting.
As other members of the audience remarked about the situation, WSD Administrator Debbie Nelson said: “You have every right to sit here and listen, but you cannot speak unless you’re on the agenda, and if anyone continues to…”
Her comments were interrupted at that point by an audience member who jumped to his feet, yelled a vulgarity and stormed out of the meeting.
Meeting rules
In the early 1980s, Dan Dickinson ran quite a few WSD meetings while serving as the commission’s President.
Meetings can be run in a variety of ways, he told the Waterford Post, including keeping open the option of receiving information brought in by the public, as he and his wife had done.
“I think it’s important that the public has the ability to have input,” Dickinson said.
And “to say no one can talk to this commission, that ‘our lawyer told us we can’t,’ ” he added, is not the way to achieve transparency or openness.
Dickinson described the commissioners’ handling of his attempt to present a document they said they couldn’t find as “rude behavior.”
The “forever” guarantee
The 1988 document brought by the Dickinsons is in a question-and-answer format and entitled “Grinder Pump Use & Service Information.”
On the second page, it asks:
“Q. Who pays for the grinder pump?
A. All District owned grinder pumps and controls will be maintained at the expense of the District.”
An exception occurs if a pump is damaged as a result of the user’s negligence or carelessness, the document states. In that case, the user pays.
Back in the day
Dickinson was elected to the WSD board and became its President in the early 1980s.
In those days, the district had hired engineers to develop options for building a sanitary sewer system in Waterford township, he explained.
The first option handled the town’s many low-lying properties by sinking the sewer mains very deep in some areas to allow for an all gravity-fed system, he explained.
The second option used grinder pumps on 302 low-lying properties to push sewage up to the main sewer lines. The main sewers then did not have to be laid unusually deep.
The engineering firm’s financial analyst strongly recommended using a grinder pump system as the most economically feasible option for everyone in the district over the life of the infrastructure, Dickinson added.
Because all district users saved money using a grinder pump system, it was determined that “grinder users should not be charged more to deal with the ugliness of the grinder pump” on their property, said Dickinson, whose Tichigan property is serviced with one.
“Any increase in overall district operational costs should be spread equally to all homeowners” as a result, he further explained,
The future
A 5 percent rate increase for all 1,925 WSD customers is set to kick in April 1.
In addition, the 302 customers with WSD-owned grinder pumps will also be charged a new $22.50 quarterly charge for the maintenance and operation of the WSD-owned pumps on their property.
The new charge has been explained as a fair way to handle the extra expenses the district incurs for the grinder pump equipment.
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