By Patricia Bogumil
Editor
In the past, residents could address Town of Waterford Sanitary District commissioners during a meeting, but WSD commissioners could not speak to residents.
That situation has now been fixed.
The lack of two-way discussion became an issue in the Aug. 14 recall of previous WSD Board President Bill Gerard by Dan Dickinson, who now serves as the board’s new president.
Dickinson has described the ban on two-way discussion as a poor business practice – and kind of ridiculous – since plenty of local municipal and school boards legally manage to have a back-and-forth dialogue with residents when desired.
The prior practice was put in place after consultation with John Macy, who served as WSD’s attorney until resigning Sept. 12.
The new policy, approved Sept. 12, consists of two steps, Dickinson said.
As before, near the start of a meeting residents can address the WSD board in a one-way presentation, whether their topic is on the meeting agenda or not.
Then, as the WSD board moves through the meeting’s agenda, residents may also be able to address the board about agenda items that come up for discussion.
Dickinson points to a recent situation in which Ken Hinz, the town’s Department of Public Works superintendent, raised his hand at a meeting to ask if he could offer information about town hall snow removal and maintenance – issues then being discussed and voted on by the WSD board.
Hinz was told no.
As of Sept. 12, that kind of information can be heard before commissioners make a decision, at their discretion. Dickinson described the new policy change as a “pretty significant” improvement to past practice.
Town hall maintenance
Also at the WSD Sept. 12 meeting, Dickinson received the go-ahead from the board to speak with several knowledgeable people about snow removal and maintenance issues at the town hall, including Hinz, WSD Operations Superintendent Norm Nelson and Town Chairman Robert Langmesser.
Nelson has expressed concern about WSD overtime being paid when maintenance tasks like snow shoveling are added to a workday, Dickinson said.
But Dickinson described that kind of thinking as “dancing on the head of a pin.”
If the real issue is overtime, then “let’s deal with overtime, not snow removal,” he explained.
Compensatory time off can be used, or “any combination of things, but let’s get the darn snow off the sidewalk,” he said.
Dickinson said he intends to gather all concerned parties together for one more discussion about town hall maintenance, keeping “the decibel level as low as possible to see what we can do to work more cooperatively, or re-establish a cooperative effort.”
Town hall lease
The snow removal issue is just the latest occasion of angst at the town hall.
WSD owns the building; the Town of Waterford leases space for its municipal offices and public works garage.
The town pays WSD $1 annually in a long-standing lease agreement. Earlier this year, WSD paid Macy to research the lease to try and find a legal way to break it.
As far as he can determine, it has been found that the town hall lease is in fact legal and binding, Dickinson said.
He suggested commissioner Jeff Santaga be contacted, since Santaga was on the WSD board when Macy gave his opinion of the situation.
Santaga did not return a request for information from the Waterford Post.
WSD lawyer resigns
In other business Sept. 12, Macy verbally offered to resign his position as the district’s attorney.
Macy was then thanked for his service, and his resignation was accepted. Macy was told he served well and the decision made was a “no-fault situation,” Dickinson said.
Macy’s offer to resign followed a statement to the board from Dickinson that he would entertain a motion to release Macy’s law firm from representing the sanitary district.
Legal fees paid to Macy so far this year are running at more than $12,000, with another $1,000 to $2,000 probably still outstanding, Dickinson said.
Only $5,000 was budgeted this year for legal fees.
“It’s clear to me we were not using our legal representation properly,” Dickinson said.
In his opinion, Macy’s services were being used for business decisions that should have been handled in house by WSD officials, Dickinson explained. “I’m not blaming John Macy for this,” he said.
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