Glen Cove OKs water rate hikes amid new well problems

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The Glen Cove City Council voted 4-3 on Tuesday in favor of a 15 percent increase to the city’s water rates. The council has been discussing the rate hikes as a way to address debt service payments, which will become due in January 2019, related to the city’s recent borrowing to install filters on the city’s Freon-contaminated wells. A set of temporary filters have been installed, but Mayor Tim Tenke said that they would need to be replaced by permanent ones in a few years.

City officials project that the average ratepayer will see a $3 increase per quarter on their water bill as a result of the measure.

The water rate discussion has been ongoing since May, and had suffered several rounds of contentious debate over the amount and nature of the rate hike. The 15 percent hike was first introduced by Councilwoman Pamela Panzenbeck as a last minute proposal at a June 28 City Council meeting in response to a 25 percent hike that Tenke put on the agenda for that meeting. At that meeting, both were voted down.

Tenke had been vying for 25 percent — which would have meant an extra $5 per quarter for rate payers — in an effort to rebuild the water fund’s surplus, which had been used by prior administrations to offset costs in other areas of the city’s budget. This practice of interfund transfers was one of several condemned in a report put out by the Office of the State Comptroller earlier this year.

“The money needs to come from somewhere,” Lisa Travatello, the city’s spokeswoman said, “and the mayor’s mission is to make the water fund an independent fund.”

In Tuesday’s vote, Councilwoman Marsha Silverman voted against the 15 percent measure, stating that she believed the lower rate hike wasn’t robust enough to help the city navigate its aging water infrastructure. Councilmen Nick DiLeo and Kevin Maccarone, both of whom have advocated against the rate hike, also voted no.

Earlier this year, three of the city’s six wells had been closed due to high concentrations of Freon 22, and another was closed for unrelated repairs. On some days during the high-demand summer months, Glen Cove had to purchase additional water from the Locust Valley Water District after a series of intense firefighting efforts and water main breaks had depleted its supply.

According to a financial report presented at Tuesday’s meeting by Sandra Clarson, the city’s controller, by Sept. 24, the city had spent nearly $75,000 on overtime costs related to emergency water main break repairs, exceeding its budget for the year by about 50 percent, with three months remaining in the year.

In an interview with the Herald Gazette, Lou Saulino, who heads the city’s Department of Public Works, said, “There has been some neglect to the infrastructure in Glen Cove in several areas. Based on the age of the water system in Glen Cove, we really have to do a study on the size of pipe, the type of pipe, to really get ahead of things like water main breaks.”

Tenke also noted that the Seaman Road well, which had been operational, had stopped producing the volume of water required by the county. The council approved a measure to pay engineering firm A.C. Schultes $13,600 to investigate the problem.