Health & Fitness
Collegeville-Trappe Water & Sewer: Behind Closed Doors
Trappe's "Trusted Team" majority Council faction holding private meetings, steaming ahead with an indefensible merger that benefits someone - except not we the ratepayers.
Be on the lookout at the Trappe Borough Council meeting scheduled on June 4, 2013 for an important resolution that isn’t on the agenda. And if you live in Collegeville or Trappe it could cost you money.
Collegeville and Trappe have shared public water and sewer service. Water service is provided by a “Committee” (Collegeville-Trappe Joint Pubic Works) since 1935. Sewage service is provided by an “Authority” (Collegeville-Trappe Municipal Authority) created in order to issue debt, which has since been repaid. “Committee” board members serve at the will of elected Council members, while “Authority” board members get appointed by Council for fixed terms of service.
On Tuesday, June 4, 2013, majority faction Council Members are likely to propose a resolution providing for the dissolution of the “Committee” and the transfer of assets into the “Authority."
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Faction members introduced this same resolution at the October 2, 2012 Trappe Borough Council meeting. Public input resulted in its withdrawal because the proponents of the resolution could not justify the change and could not provide estimated costs and benefits of the change. Faction members pushed the rest of Council to pass the bill in order to find out what was in it.
Here we are eight months later and still no public response to the list of questions various Council members requested of the “Committee” shortly after the October 2, 2012 meeting.
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The combined assets of the “Committee” and the “Authority” are approximately $14 million and their annual user fees are approximately $2,000,000. This is not the time to wing it. We are all entitled to the facts before the vote, not after.
We currently do know that if the “Authority” is the surviving entity then our boroughs forfeit approximately $200,000 of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania supplied pension credits over each ten year period. What are the other costs? Why not get the questions answered before the vote?
Collegeville and Trappe ratepayers have a big stake in this and they should be heard, yet most of the information is covered in Executive Sessions which exclude various Council members. Why? What is going on here? Come out to the meeting at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at Trappe Borough Hall and help us seek answers.
