In attending the 02/04/2015 Stevensville Planning Board meeting, there were four items placed on the agenda by Mayor Mim Mack. It was stated to a large attendance that these items were in the very early discussion phase. In my opinion and many years of experience, there is a desire to annex one to three areas adjacent to the Town under way. It was cleverly disguised as simply trying to determine what Town Zoning would be best for the area. It begs the question of if the property owners in the area want to be part of Stevensville? It begs another question of if the Town and its ratepayers should be financing infrastructure to new areas?
I believe if a property owner wants to develop their property contiguous to incorporated Stevensville, they should bear the full cost of installing infrastructure at a minimum. The ratepayers are going through the expense to upgrade the water and sewer systems and should not have to bear any additional burden.
Contrary to what is being said around Town, the original cost for the water system was in the $2.8 million range and that ballooned to right at $4.9 million. The original plan voted in called for replacement of the mains, looping service lines (to equalize system pressure), install a water treatment plant and install and bring online up to four new wells to provide water. Now at least two years later and $2 million more in budget, service lines are not looped in the majority of the Town (about 1/3 are), at least one of the new wells is problematic (not producing at expected volume and drawing too much sand to function at higher volumes) requiring additional expense to fix. Flow restriction has been placed in lines to reduce the higher pressure on the south side of Town (which really does not equalize pressure, does not allow quick backfill in case of fire or help boost pressure where it is needed). Water storage was not addressed in the original plan, but will need to be addressed at some future date. So there is still work needed to complete what we started. The water production in the plan was designed to meet current and future needs, but if the Mayor and Town Council start increasing the demand by expanding the water and sewer system then what was planned will not meet future needs.
Let’s keep on task and leave empire building for later.
Clayton D. Floyd Jr.
Stevensville