Village of Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said Monday the village had no intention of dropping its demand for $300,000 in interest and penalties against the Village of Williston Park based on water rate increases not paid during the two villages’ legal battle over the rate Williston Park charges its neighbor village.
“The rates we’ve estimated have been approved by the courts. We’re not price gouging. We’re not being vindictive,” Ehrbar said at a Williston Park village board meeting on Monday night.
Ehrbar was reacting to a story in last week’s Williston Times in which Village of East Williston Mayor David Tanner said his village will not pay what he described as “onerous” financial penalties included in a bill sent by Williston Park.
Tanner was joined East Williston Trustee Robert Vella Jr. in criticizing the penalties at last week’s East Williston village board meeting.
“If they’re going to be retaliatory, they’re going to have to take us to court,” Vella said.
When one resident at Monday night’s meeting asked Ehrbar what action he proposed the village trustees take to recover the penalty fees, the mayor said, “We will seek those monies in any way we’re entitled to.”
Ehrbar said the penalties imposed on East Williston are no different than penalties Williston Park would impose on any customer who doesn’t pay a water bill.
“The penalties East Williston has been assessed are the same penalties anyone would be assessed who is late on their bill,” he said.
After the meeting, Ehrbar said Williston Park had received a partial payment of $239,000 from East Williston that subtracted $61,000 from the $300,000 bill for rate increases withheld while the two villages were in court. The Village of Williston Park had sent East Williston a bill for $600,000 – $300,000 for the withheld rate increase money and $300,000 for interest and penalties.
“They paid us what they feel was appropriate,” Ehrbar said.
He said the village board had not yet decided to accept the partial payment.
Tanner said last week that East Williston planned to make a deduction based on five months of bills it paid on the initial water rate increase Williston Park imposed from $2.99 per thousand gallons $3.83 per thousand gallons in April 2011 before the East Williston trustees filed their first lawsuit later that year.
In one of two decisions issued by the state Appellate Court on July 9, the court upheld a lower court ruling on that first suit that said Williston Park should have held a public hearing before imposing that increase.
In a second ruling, the court found in favor of Williston Park in the second lawsuit, stating that Williston Park was within its right to raise the water rates in August 2012 when the village trustees raised the price to $4.33 per thousand gallons. The second suit was filed by East Williston shortly after that rate increase was imposed.
Ehrbar said he is hopeful of establishing a relationship with the East Williston trustees to discuss the water rates.
Several attempts to settle the water rates dispute in meetings between officials from the two villages failed to produce any progress toward a resolution during the three-year legal battle.
At last week’s East Williston board meeting, Vella said the East Williston board is contemplating alternatives to receiving its water from Williston Park.
East Williston trustees had earlier raised the possibility of Williston Park and East Williston forming a water district, but the suggestion was immediately rejected by Ehrbar.
Reach reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204. Also follow us on Twitter @theislandnow1 and Facebook at facebook.com/theislandnow.
