Last week members of the Culver Town Council considered a contract amendment to the East Shore Sewer Corp.
After running into issues with the wetland disposal system, East Shore Corp negotiated with the Town of Culver to connect to the town’s wastewater treatment plant to assure a fail-safe way to serve the residents living on the east shore of Lake Maxinkuckee.
Fritz Steck, President of East Shore Corp spoke to the Culver Town Council on April 27th on the proposed amendment. He said they are seeking an additional 20 connections to the treatment plant for future development within the East Shore District. The initial contract was for 130 connections and currently they have 102 connections.
Ginny Munroe said there was an issued with the one-time-buy-in amount. She explained the current amount is $25,539.46
Town Council Attorney Jim Clevenger assured council members that the treatment plant has enough capacity to handle the additional 20 units the contract calls for. He also said he calculated the buy-in fee at $27,577.60. The attorney said the additional buy-in fee would be payable on or before December 21, 2022.
Town Council member Bill Cleavenger asked which buy-in fee they were going to use, Attorney Clevenger’s or Mr. Steck from East Shore Corp. Steck said he would agree with the attroney’s calculation.
Bill Cleavenger said his figures show the additional 30 connections as a 16% increase from the original 130. He said he would like to see the buy-in from East Shore Corp. increase by the same 16% or up to $31,989. When asked why increase the buy-in he said, “Basically you are taking capacity that we will never get back.”
Councilmember Bill Githens asked Cathy Clark if there was an increase when the South West Conservancy District added additional homes and she confirmed it remained the same. He believed the buy-in should stay at the original amount.
There was a consensus to allow for an additional 20 units, the only question was the amount of the buy-in.
Steck said the first thing is to determine a formula to calculate the buy-in fee. He said if you want to base it on capacity that is fine.
The Town attorney said, “If you take the $179,254 for thebuy-in for the first 130 units and divided it by the 130 units it equals $1,378.88 per unit. Then I multiplied the $1,378.00 by the 20 additional connections for a buy-in rate I come up with $27,577.60. If you increase it by the 16% for the capacity at the treatment plan you come up with $28,680.
Bill Cleavenger motioned to approve a buy-in fee of $28,680 due to the Town of Culver by December 31, 2021 for future development of 20 lots. Culver Town Council unanimously approved the motion.
