CountyTown-Joint Water:& Sewer County, town reach accord By Allison Brophy Champion Published: June 25, 2008 Taking the politics out of water and sewer service in Culpeper was a long time coming. But after more than a decade of careful and contentious consideration, Town Council and the County Board of Supervisors are taking real steps, for the first time, toward the formation of an independently managed, regional water and sewer authority. As part of that, the town would be allowed to grow beyond its 1968 borders. Both bodies, made up of 16 members in all, reached that consensus after Tuesday night’s private meeting at Germanna’s Daniel Technology Center along McDevitt Drive. Specific details about the regional authority and in what areas the town would grow were still hard to come by Wednesday, but the outlook was positive. “I predict that we will have a satisfactory agreement by the end of the year for a water and sewer authority or at least a plan,” said Mayor Pranas Rimeikis. “Last night, we had a very productive meeting and we came to an agreement on the framework.” County Board Chairman Bill Chase agreed, saying a lot of progress was made. “We’ve gotten a general agreement but the particulars haven’t been worked out,” he said. “We’re now in a posture to proceed,” on the regional sewer and water authority, Chase said. He said more details would be forthcoming at Thursday night’s public hearing regarding what role in the regional authority Angler Development’s proposed water and sewer system around the town would have. Rimeikis said the Angler proposal was not discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting. In addition, there were no lawyers present. “That was by design,” the mayor said. “We could easily get bound up in ‘what-if’ situations; we don’t want somebody to tell us it won’t work, we want them to tell us how to make it work.” Chase said a “main issue” on his part is what they (the town) want within the town limits in their annexation.” “We just want to guarantee all the citizens will be better off.” Mayor Rimeikis said it was too early to specify in which areas the town would grow. “I would say more than half of the contiguous area around the town boundaries — all the way around,” he said. Previous town proposals included the area around Lake Pelham and areas north and east of town, including portions of the Northridge Subdivision, Lowe’s and the Centre at Culpeper, the shopping center with Five Guys. Also included in a previous town proposal was an area along U.S. 29/15 Business out to Inlet, and land around the town sewer plant and public works facility. Rimeikis said the newly opened high tech data center at Terremark was not under consideration as part of the boundary adjustment. “As they say, the devil is in the details,” he said. “Our staff is now working on ironing out some of these issues.” Also included in Tuesday night’s discussion was future and current land use for the new areas proposed to come into the town with an emphasis on preserving farmland. “We are sensitive to the fact some of those areas are agricultural,” Rimeikis said. “We would prefer to keep everything the way it is so no landowner suffers.” The two governing bodies also talked about mitigating the impacts of the proposed town expansion on affected businesses. As for the format of the regional authority, the respective staffs plan to look to existing authorities for a model. Rimeikis said the town’s utility employees would remain in place under the regional authority format. County Supervisor Sue Hansohn, chairwoman of the county’s public works committee, said Tuesday’s meeting showed that the town and county were not so far apart in their goals. “We’re trying to get to the same place, but until we actually sat down and talked about it, we didn’t realize how close we were.” Hansohn stopped short of saying how close the groups were to establishing the authority, saying she’d prefer to “wait and see,” noting another joint town-county meeting is set for July. Rimeikis said a draft plan on the multi-level regional authority proposal should be ready by next month. Regarding tonight’s public hearing on the Angler proposal, Hansohn expected an informational meeting. “I think they (residents) really want to tell us how they feel about it,” she said. “I’m hearing that people are very doubtful.” Other residents, Hansohn said, have expressed confidence, but said the key is in how the deal is structured. Town Councilman Steve Jenkins, one of three elected representatives who voted against going into closed session Tuesday, said the end result couldn’t have happened soon enough. “I would have liked to have seen this take place two years ago,” he said, “and for the first time since I’ve been on council, I saw a true commitment between both bodies of trying to reach compromise and trying to work together.” Chase and Councilman Mike Olinger also voted against holding the important discussion in closed session. Salem Supervisor Tom Underwood, before voting with the majority to close the doors to the public at Tuesday night’s meeting of Culpeper Town Council and the County Board of Supervisors, spoke of international negotiations as his basis for the closed session approach. “At high levels, for example, they don’t negotiate treaties in public,” said the freshman supervisor, who usually votes against closed sessions.