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Date: 9/14/2023
WARE — After a previous meeting in July, the Selectboard discussed further their future plans on the handling of wastewater in the town of Ware. The members met at Ware Town Hall in front of a small crowd of officials and residents, looking to gain more information on the initial discussion, and learn more about Aquarion, the company that is looking to take over the water and wastewater management in the town.
The town is looking to unburden itself financially of water and sewer costs with the sale of its water and wastewater assets, and began its search for a private utility to assume management of these systems in March. The town’s request for proposals received one response from Aquarion, which describes itself as a public water supply company that services more than 700,000 in 60 New England municipalities.
The discussion started off with Town Manager Stuart Beckley, who discussed a letter of intent between the Selectboard and Aquarion.
“[It will have] many aspects, from properties they [Aquarion] want to acquire, which assets the town would like to keep, how employees will be treated if there is a transition,” Beckley said. “During that time, there would be public information sessions … to have opportunities for people to ask questions, but also for the town and Aquarion to provide information on the proposal.”
The Town Meeting for which this public information session would be would most likely not be until January according to Beckley.
“Pushing for a November meeting would just be too fast,” he said. “It would not allow enough time for public input.”
Selectboard Chair Caitlyn McCarthy added that with the discussion on a letter of intent, the Selectboard is working on developing a subcommittee to work on the letter.
“[We want] different people, different opinions to work on what the letter of intent is,” she said. “We’re working on that negotiation to bring that information to public forum.”
McCarthy continued with other ways that Aquarion could reach the public and field questions about the work that they will do in the town, and alleviate any concerns people may have about the process.
“We thought about opening up the Town Hall,” she said. “So that Aquarion can be set up and people can talk to them about different things. I think it’s really important to have the community really be a part of this.”
The sale price of the water and wastewater project in Ware is currently said to be in the region of $10 million, leaving members of the Selectboard to bring up questions on how this money would be distributed and/or spent in the event that the sale does go through. While there wasn’t much concrete discussion on this topic, McCarthy brought up the fund of taxpayer money that is being used for wastewater management in Ware, and that in a future meeting, this topic would need to be brought up again to decide how that money and any sale money would be used.
The topic of Aquarion resurfaced, and the Selectboard opened up to questions and comments from employees in the audience. One employee mentioned hearing the opinions of people and places who have used Aquarion in the past. To this McCarthy said that was part of the plan for the Selectboard.
“I think it’s our due diligence to figure out why [they didn’t want to go with Aquarion],” she said. “I just want to give them the opportunity to tell us why they would be [beneficial to our town].”
According to the Selectboard, seven other companies received the information about Ware’s water/wastewater issue and did not get back to the town. To this, board member Keith Kruckas suggested reaching out to the other companies on why they decided not to go through with the project.
“If it seems like such a good idea to privatize, how come nobody else was interested in it,” Kruckas said.
The next Selectboard meeting will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 19.