The Village of Williston Park has fired the latest volley in its legal battle with the Village of East Williston over water rates, arguing that East Williston’s second lawsuit was an inappropriate challenge to Williston Park’s latest rate increase.
A Jan. 23 filing by Williston Park village attorney James Bradley answers East Williston’s contention in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 4 in Nassau County Supreme Court that a rate of $4.33 per 1,0000 gallons of water was set “unreasonably, arbitrarily and capriciously” by the Williston Park Village Board.
In his filing, Bradley said East Williston village attorney Jeffrey Blinkoff’s had the right to challenge the procedure followed by Williston Park in determining the rate but not the rate itself.
“The result was a reasonable, fair and equitable system of water rates which provides adequate revenues to support the needs of the water system, including reasonably anticipated future capital expenditures, and distributed the financial burden among the customers,” Bradley wrote.
Bradley said Williston Park had considered criticism by East Williston’s consultant, John Guastella, of the village’s initial rates before setting the price of water to East Williston at $4.33 per 1,000 gallons. William Merklin, vice president for consulting engineers Dvirka & Bartolucci, had originally recommended a rate of $4.41 per 1,000 gallons of water for East Williston.
The East Williston lawsuit states that the Williston Park board rejected offers made by East Williston board members without making a counteroffer.
Blinkoff said in his filing that Williston Park commissioned a report that simply confirmed its decision “to make an economic profit beyond reasonable costs,” including a 12 percent surcharge.
In his reply, Bradley wrote, “A municipality is entitled to a profit or fair return in selling water to an outside user.” He also said the state Court of Appeals has held that municipal water suppliers can set water rates for outside users at the their own discretion.
In June 2012, East Williston Trustee Robert Vella Jr. interceded at a public hearing as the Williston Park board was about to set new water rates with a last-minute appeal for negotiations between the two village boards. A subsequent meeting between representatives of both villages failed to produce a compromise and the rate went up to $4.33 per 1,000 gallons.
A little more than a year earlier, in April, 2011, Williston Park had increased the rate it charges East Williston from $2.99 per thousand gallons to $3.83 per 1,000 gallons.
The April 2011 rate increase prompted the East Williston Village Board to file its first lawsuit against the Williston Park Village Board.
East Williston won the first round in that suit last summer when Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cozzens ruled that the Williston Park Village Board had improperly set that rate increase by not holding public hearings on it. Bradley is drafting an appeal to that ruling.
In that suit, the East Williston Village Board also contended the $3.83 rate was an set in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.
In an affidavit in the second East Williston suit against its neighbor village, Vella said, “What the action of Williston Park shows is their belief that East Williston, as a captive customer, has no choice but to accept such terms as Williston Park dictates.”
In an affidavit filed as part of Williston Park’s response, Village of Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar disputed Vella’s statement.
He said former East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi told him in their first negotiating session, “You don’t want to lose us,” and said East Williston was exploring other water sources at that time.
Ehrbar noted that East Williston Mayor David Tanner had been quoted in a December 21, 2012 article in the Williston Times saying the East Williston board is continuing to explore tapping other water suppliers.
Ehrbar said in April 2011, East Williston representatives insisted on maintaining a rate that was 78 percent of what Williston Park charged commercial customers in its own village.
In another affidavit in Williston Park’s reply to East Williston’s latest lawsuit, Merklin said in his June 2012 report to the Williston Park board, that he “determined the current water rates were inadequate to cover the cost of delivering water to Williston Park customers” apart from those in East Williston.
A report by Guastella commissioned by the East Williston board recommended that Williston Park charge East Williston $3.52 per 1,000 gallons.
