East Hampton sewer ordinance: public hearing Nov. 24

A board of seven East Hampton residents, appointed by the Town Council, would run the town's sewers and set the sewer rate on your bill under an ordinance the council sent to a public hearing Tuesday night. Residents can speak on it at the hearing, set for the council's meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at 6:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers.

For now the seven council members are themselves the town's Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA), the body state law puts in charge of a town's sewers and the one that sets the rate (more on that). The ordinance gives its own reason: the authority's makeup and powers are to be revised and the job "returned to a body separate from the Town Council." Ordinance 2026.04 would hand that job to a new Water and Sewer Commission of seven residents and two alternates, appointed to staggered three-year terms instead of the five in the first draft. The council would keep approval over the commission's biggest decisions.

On Tuesday it raised the bar for what counts as big. The draft Town Manager David Cox brought back from a Sept. 29 workshop required council approval for professional services contracts over $25,000 and for capital projects and major contracts over $50,000. Council member Richard Knotek proposed higher figures, and the council went through them one by one.

The limits now in the draft

• Engineering, legal, financial and other professional services: above $50,000. Knotek had proposed $75,000.
• Capital projects: above $100,000, and only for projects not already in the approved capital plan.
• Major contracts: above $75,000, and only when a contract also runs for years (the draft proposes more than three), creates a significant continuing financial obligation for the town and materially affects the system's long-term operation or finances. All four tests must be met.
• Borrowing: council approval only when the town guarantees it; otherwise the commission could borrow on its own. Cox said he and Director of Finance Jeffery Jylkka would work out the wording.
• Legal settlements: still above $25,000, which a member said is the town's insurance deductible.

Knotek said sewer costs reach those figures quickly, that ordinances like this one can go five, 10 or 15 years without review, and that low limits would keep sending the commission back to a council whose members are not experts. The town wants engineers and financial people to volunteer, he said, and the limits would tie their hands. "I think it's a bit insulting to be quite honest," he said.

He asked Cox whether the authority had ever been a problem financially. Cox said it had not: "the organization has done fine financially." The bigger question, he said, was the council understanding in more detail what goes on there.

A member said the $50,000 project limit had been Council member Ted Hintz Jr.'s suggestion, meant to keep the commission from buying land without the council's knowledge. Others said land falls under a different section, which requires a town meeting vote only when town money is used. Members agreed that, as drafted, the commission could buy land with the sewer utility's own money without the council's or a town meeting's approval, the sticking point in September. The draft would still require the commission to tell the council in writing before acquiring significant property, and it counts land bought for a capital project toward that project's cost.

Who the commission works for

Knotek also asked for a sentence near the top of the ordinance saying the commission's primary duty, within its authority, "is to operate in the best interests of the users it serves." Most residents reading the draft, he said, would assume the authority works for the council. "The revenue of the WPCA belongs to the users," he said. Cox is to find the right place for the sentence.

Members also struck "reject and" from the lines letting the council "reject and return" the commission's budget and five-year capital plan. One member said that under state law the council, like the Board of Finance, can make recommendations, but the authority approves its own budget; another said the words gave "a false sense of authority." The council would return the budget with comments.

The commission would report to the council twice a year instead of every quarter, and its chair and the public utilities administrator "may be asked" to appear before the council instead of being required to.

What stays

In appointing members the council "should consider" experience in fields such as finance, engineering and utilities; a resident had asked for "must." The commission would have to notify the council in writing before acting on major matters, including a material change in sewer rates, and the draft says that notice should come at least 25 business days ahead. Any deal over treatment, capacity or shared equipment with another town or regional body would need council approval at any price, including deals with Colchester over the treatment plant the two towns share through the Colchester-East Hampton Joint Facilities.

The council first voted by voice to send the amended draft to a hearing at its next meeting, Nov. 10. After a member asked how much was already on that agenda, it reconsidered and moved the hearing to Nov. 24, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.