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Massena Town Council has long road ahead to take over water lines

Posted 1/24/18

By ANDY GARDNER MASSENA -- The town’s effort to taking over village water lines will involve many legal steps and won't be a quick deal, the town’s attorney told the Town Council at their …

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Massena Town Council has long road ahead to take over water lines

Posted

By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The town’s effort to taking over village water lines will involve many legal steps and won't be a quick deal, the town’s attorney told the Town Council at their Wednesday meeting.

The village is trying to get the town to take over “several sections of waterlines in the town on Highland Road, South Main (Street) and North Main (Street) … that are not in any district but they are in the town,” Town Supervisor Steve O’Shaughnessy said.

Town attorney Eric Gustafson told the board they have a long process ahead of them.

“It’s not ‘okay, let’s come up with a quick agreement, shake hands and be done with it,’” he said.

He said that they have to take care of a pending lawsuit involving village waterlines, the specifics of which were not discussed, as well as figure out existing contractual responsibilies assocaited with the public works in question.

They also have to figure out if the board would vote to take over the waterlines, or if they will let the residents in what would be its district decide at the polls.

“There are two processes for doing it … one is generated by the residents … but the town board has the authority to do it as well, Gustafson said, adding the council can “initiate it and allow the folks of the proposed district to have a vote on it, if you want.”

He later added that they need to figure out what they would have to pay in engineering fees.

“I don’t know what we would be looking at in engineering fees,” the town attorney said.

Councilman Tom Miller said he’s eager to reach a resolution.

“We’re spinning our wheels … let’s get some questions for Eric … so we can move on… this is probably the 15th time we’ve talked about this,” Miller said. “We need to get to the end point.”