The Alternative Press

 

PATERSON, NJ – Instead of risking the loss of $21 million in state transitional aid, the City Council Tuesday approved a plan that would double city sewer fees over the next four years.

At first, the ordinance increasing the fees failed when only four of the seven council members at the meeting voted in favor of it. The measure needed five votes for passage.

But then Councilman Rigo Rodriguez changed his vote. “It’s a catch-22 here,’’ he said, referring to the unappealing options of increasing the fees or risking the state aid.

Under the ordinance, the sewer fees for a single family house would increase by $28 per year so that by 2015 the charge would be $224, or twice as much as it is now. The goal of the ordinance is to make the city’s sewer operation self-sufficient.

For years, the sewers have been subsidized by property taxes. Officials say that has created an inequity because several categories of property owners - including public entities, businesses with tax abatements and nonprofit groups and churches – must pay sewer fees but not property taxes. As a result, homeowners and other taxpayers have been picking up part of the tab for those groups, officials said.

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is mandating that Paterson increase its sewer fees as one of the conditions outlined in an agreement providing the city with $21 million in transitional aid. The DCA also has said it would not approve Paterson’s requests to rehire police officers and evening program recreation workers until the city increases the sewer fees and balances its budget.

The increase was not popular with several residents who attended Tuesday night’s meeting.

“The poor people of Paterson will give another gallon of blood to the finances of our city,’’ said Tom Fuscaldo.

 “After these four year, what about the next four years?’’ asked Mark Shayland. “When is enough, enough?’’

The original vote had council members Anthony Davis, Aslon Goow, William McKoy and Kenneth Morris voting for the ordinance and Rodriguez, Andre Sayegh and Julio Tavarez against it. Even though who voted for the increase said they were not happy about, but insisted they had little choice considering the state’s position. “Show me where I can get $20 million from,’’ Morris said to the members who voted against the increase.

But Tavarez argued that Paterson had heard “doomsday scenarios” from the state before that turned out not to be true. He criticized the administration for not moving quickly enough on a corresponding program to increase the sewer fees for surrounding municipalities that are connected to Paterson’s system.

The council approved an ordinance Tuesday night designed to set in motion sewer hikes for other towns, like Totowa and Haledon. But it did not include precise numbers on how much extra the other towns would pay. Business administrator Charles Thomas said that was because the city’s existing agreements on those fees are decades-old and outdated, while new data on exactly how much the other towns pump into Paterson’s sewers is still being compiled.

Under the plan, the neighboring towns would have to pay an extra 10 percent in administrative fees for using Paterson’s sewers and the increase would go into effect all at once, rather than being staggered over four years.

Fuscaldo said Paterson should not have imposed higher fees on its own residents until it completed the details on the hike for neighboring towns. “We’ve got to get those numbers in there,’’ he said.

The increased sewer fees will take effect in the bills issued in February, officials said.