Boards to talk water, sewer, growth

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: July 24, 2008

It’s like “MOU” déjà vu.

Five years after wrangling over and ratifying a multi-point “memorandum of understanding” for extension of the town’s water and sewer utilities into the county, Culpeper Town Council and the Board of Supervisors are taking another crack at it.

This time, the proposal is to form a regional water and sewer authority in which an independent body would manage, disperse and set rates for town and county utility customers.

As part of that, the town would be allowed to grow its borders in exchange for contributing substantial water and sewer infrastructure, and customers, to the proposed authority.

The two bodies meet tonight at 7 in Room 221 of the Daniel Technology Center to further discuss these issues, one month after the last closed meeting in which both boards agreed, in concept, to the idea.

However, it is uncertain whether Thursday’s meeting will be open or closed.

The county advertised it as open. The town advertised it as closed. It could be both.

“As far as I know, it’s open,” Salem Supervisor Tom Underwood said Wednesday. “At this point, I’m leaning toward open.”

But he said he would listen to all involved parties “to figure out the best mechanism.”

The county’s agenda for Thursday’s meeting lists one item under unfinished business: consideration of a “Memorandum of Understanding with the town of Culpeper regarding creating a Regional Water and Sewer Authority, expanding Town geographical areas by boundary line adjustment agreement with the town and related topics.”

Since last month’s meeting, the respective staffs formatted a draft MOU and a draft resolution outlining major points of the aforementioned; both will be under consideration tonight.

“I don’t know for sure what the process is,” Underwood said of what form the pending agreement would take. “But progress has definitely been made.

“Whether it is sufficient progress, I guess we will find out (today).”

Underwood hoped an official contract between the town and county for a regional authority could be in place by the end of August.

Angler proposal
Also in August, the Board of Supervisors will consider a separate utility proposal from Warrenton-based Angler Development for construction of a $100 million-plus water and sewer system to serve areas around the town, according to County Administrator Frank Bossio.

Construction on that proposed project needs to start next month as well in order for the county to meet the state’s 2010 deadline for waste load allocations.

Mayor Pranas Rimeikis said tonight’s meeting would start in open session, adding, “My feeling is that we still have some details to go over that require closed-session discussion. It will depend on the rest of the group.”

The mayor said negotiations the past month have been “going all right” but hoped there was enough “momentum” to keep the process moving forward, considering the pace of government.

“It’s a little frantic trying to stay ahead of the rumors,” he said. “But I think we have made another significant step considering it’s only been a month” since the formation of a draft MOU and corresponding resolution, both of which are legally nonbinding.

Rimeikis said he preferred the resolution format, though both, in essence, contained the same information. He added that both governing bodies will decide on the format tonight in order “to let everybody know what it is we are fundamentally working on so we can do more and more of this out in the open.”

The mayor said the town did not have a timeline for working out those details, noting that he spent more time closing on his house than the timeline Underwood mentioned.
“The details are very, very important,” Rimeikis said. “If you miss one, you can’t go back.”

Building momentum?
Catalpa Supervisor Sue Hansohn, chairwoman of the county’s Water and Sewer Committee, said last month’s meeting between the town and county was a good one.

“I thought everybody was coming together and getting on the same page,” she said Wednesday.

Hansohn hopes the draft MOU proves to be “a reflection of what we talked about last month.” She also said the board hoped to have some agreement in place with the town “as soon as we can.”

“We hope to have an answer as soon as possible. We have to decide what we are doing to move forward. Time is of the essence as always,” Hansohn said, adding that she understood Thursday’s meeting would be open.

Board Chairman Bill Chase, as always, was adamant about keeping the meeting open.

“You know how I feel on that,” he said. “I don’t see any doggone secrets on it — we can negotiate it front of the world.”

The different approaches to the proposed agreement — MOU or resolution — resulted from “different lawyers,” Chase said.

“The whole point is whether they want to negotiate or not,” he added. “I can’t read it,” Chase said, adding he hoped a decision on the matter would be made tonight.

Town Councilman Duke duFrane felt “great progress” was made in the past month.

“I am hoping it will be an agreement that works out to be mutually beneficial to both parties,” he said, “because apparently the last one wasn’t.”

DuFrane hoped to see an agreement formatted “as quickly as we can.”

He feels tonight’s meeting should be closed to the public.

“I think that there is a time for open meetings and a time for closed meetings — the laws are written for just that reason — and so I think it is time for another closed session,” duFrane said, “which apparently made some progress last time.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or

Want to go?

The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and Culpeper Town Council meet tonight at 7 in the Daniel Technology Center, Room 221, to discuss a proposal for a regional water and sewer authority and town boundary line adjustment. The county advertised the meeting as open, but the town advertised it as closed. Parts could be both ways.