Education Service Network: Town of Wellsville OKs creating water district

WELLSVILLE — Town leaders Monday night approved the creation of a water district to make a Route 417 waterline extension project possible. They also agreed to move forward with bonding for the project, which carries a project cost of roughly $930,000.

The resolution forming Dyke Water District will have to be filed with the state before the district becomes official. No property owner in the district submitted a petition requesting a referendum on forming the district. The 30-day deadline was to end July 11, the town previously said.

"To finance the project (water service extension), we need to bond and work with Municipal Solutions in determining the funding and how we’re going to set that up," town Supervisor Dar Fanton said. "This motion needs to be ... for adopting a bond or allowing us to enter into an agreement to create a bond to fund the project."

Councilman Donald "Tink" LaForge Jr. asked, "So, the bond, there’s no restriction? We’re not going to put a restriction in here?"

Fanton said, "There’s restriction for $930,000, tops. Is that what you mean?"

LaForge said, "That also was pending that we got the funding from grants — (the project cost is) not all 100 percent from the district, correct?"

The town supervisor said, "The bond is to borrow the money. That’s one issue. A separate issue is that we have secured financing grants. Empire State Development — they don’t pay their $165,000 until the project is completely done. ARC (Appalachian Regional Commission) is now combined with EDA (U.S. Economic Development Administration) grant, for a total of $800,000-something. The EDA, to my understanding, administers both those grants now. They do pay in increments. I don’t know what the dollar amounts are. I’m sure it’s something relatively high on a project this size."

Fanton said the time it will take to get the grant funds is unknown.

"So, I don’t foresee it being until, if we get lucky, maybe the first part of next year before we finally know what the total bill is that the local district is going to have to pay," he said. "We don’t know what the (construction) bids are going to come in at. If they come in over what we’ve estimated, we’ve got an issue.

"The bottom line, that I hope I made clear to the district, is if any of this falls through, then the district’s still liable for the financing of it, period, as we do work," he said.

"Whatever the bottom line is, the district’s responsible for — which, what we’ll turn it into is another bond for probably 12 or 13 years depending on what the amount is. Then, each of the property owners pay their portion based on their value."

Councilman Shad Alsworth asked, "We have letters of commitment on the different grants, though, right? So, we’re pretty well secure in that."

Fanton said, "There are time limits on each one of them, for the extensions of them, so the project has got to move along.

"The implication is that the engineering, at least, has to be ... a bid package put together and sent out for quotes. We’re probably going to have to do that ourselves, because we don’t have an engineering firm to create that document," he said.

Fanton said as far as he knows, there’s no reason to think the grants won’t come through.

"In fact, ARC has already transferred the money over to the EDA, so the EDA money is at least there. I’ve notified Empire State Development about it. I sent our contact there a note saying, ‘We’re going ahead with it’ and I’ve been in contact with EDA."