At Parish Council, water district board members survive attempt to remove them

FRANKLIN — For the second time this spring, the St. Mary Parish Council is being asked to step into turmoil at a parish water district.
The dispute is over new rates adopted by the Water and Sewer Commission No. 1 board, which would increase water and sewer revenue by 76% through a combination of higher residential charges and a separate, higher rate tier for commercial water customers.

The council discussed but didn’t take action at its June 14 meeting on a proposal to remove three members from the five-member board, which serves Amelia and Siracusaville. The other two members resigned.

Councilman Mark Duhon put discussion and possible removal of board members Carlo Gagliano Jr. Carla Gagliano and Kenneth P. Mire on the agenda, but moved to table the issue after the June 14 discussion.

Board members Leroy Trim and Oscar Toups submitted their resignations two days after an eventful public board meeting June 7, when the increases were approved.

“I don’t want to be part of an inflationary cycle that’s going to hurt the country,” Duhon said Monday. “I don’t want to raise any rates on nothing.

“The parish works for the people. Somebody has to have some humanity somewhere.”

Resident Andrew Gros Jr. told the Parish Council that as a result of the new rates, his water bill would go from $12.10 to $44 a month, while his sewer charge would rise to $55.

“We know we’ve got to go up on water,” Gros said. “We know we’ve got to go up on sewer.”

But Gros objected to the size of the increase.

District Operations Manager Brian Tabor defended the new rate structure and stuck up for the board members.

The rate Gros referred to is the commercial rate, he said.

Information from the district indicates that the new rates were determined after consulting with the Louisiana Rural Water Association and Pan American Engineers.

The residential water rate went from $12.10 to $16.50 per month for the first 2,000 gallons and $5.45 for each additional 1,000 gallons.

The residential sewer charge rose from $14.90 for 3,000 gallons and $1.96 for each additional 1,000 gallons to $18 for 2,000 gallons and $3.45 per 1,000 after that.

The combined water and sewer charge for 5,300 gallons, which Tabor said would include most customers, would be $63.86 – more than for customers in Berwick and Morgan City, but less than in Baldwin, Donaldsonville and Patterson, according to the district’s figures.

Separate commercial and residential rates are not uncommon, Tabor said. The district’s customers include large operations including the Bollinger and Conrad shipyards, and “the response I got from businesses ... was not of great alarm,” he said.

The district has lost other commercial customers, including PHI Inc., over the last decade, Tabor said. Property tax income is down from a peak of about $1.2 million a year to $585,000.

Meanwhile, the general inflation rate has been high and the cost of chemicals such as chlorine and alum is going up.

Answering a question from Councilman Rodney Olander of Franklin about potential cost-cutting moves, Tabor said the board doesn’t have much flexibility. As an example, he cited the cost of compliance with the terms of its discharge permit, which
require a $100,000 expenditure this year, will cost $200,000 next year.

Councilwoman Dr. Kristi Prejeant Rink said the leak rate, the percentage of water lost in transmission, for the district is 18%, three times the rate of the Centerville district in which she lives.

Tabor congratulated Centerville on its low leak rate but said the Amelia district’s rate is in line with that of other systems.

Rink also wondered whether the district could save money by continuing to buy water from Morgan City as it has during a $1.4 million upgrade of the district’s water plant. Board President Carlo Gagliano said that wouldn’t make sense because the district is spending the money for its own upgrade.

The nature of the June 7 public meeting was also part of the discussion at the Parish Council meeting. Gros said that he was cut off after speaking 3 minutes at the district meeting.

Rink and resident Bonnie Duhon pointed to documents on district letterhead that described rates higher than those Tabor described. Tabor dismissed them as drafts.

A missing audio tape of the June 7 district meeting did nothing to smooth things over. Mark Duhon asked where the tape is.

Tabor said that the recorder wasn’t set up correctly after the meeting was moved to the Amelia Volunteer Fire Department station to accommodate a large crowd.Duhon was also accused of being disruptive during the June 7, which he denied, and of pressuring Toups and Trim to resign.

Gagliano defended his fellow board members. He said the board was able to get work estimated to cost $280,000 on a lift station upgrade for $20,000. The only
black mark on a recent Louisiana Department of Health water report is that the district’s pre-increase rates weren’t high enough to make the system sustainable.

“This board has worked diligently and hard,” Gagliano said.

In April, all five members of the Water District No. 5 board in west St. Mary resigned.

The task of overseeing the district’s operations fell to Jean Paul Bourg just as he was being promoted from parish public works director to chief administrative officer.

Also June 14, the Parish Council passed a resolution praising the Berwick High baseball team for its Non-Selection Division III state championship.

“You just can’t say enough about the talent and the leadership that goes into this,” said Councilman Patrick Hebert of Berwick.

“Hold on to this,” Parish President David Hanagriff told the players. “Remember this. You’re only young once.”