WPCA Refuses To Settle Lawsuits
On Friday, October 21st, Jack Murray representing the WPCA (and their attorneys) along with Peter Hughes attended a pre-trial conference for the five benefit assessment appeals filed against the WPCA. My attorney, three other plaintiffs, and I also attended this pre-trial.
The purpose of this pre-trial was to attempt settlement and save everyone legal fees. That includes the town. As everyone well knows, legal expenses were a hot topic at the last town budget vote, which caused it to fail multiple times.
Unfortunately, however, the current administration and board members of this town (Black, Murray, Hughes, et.’al) seem to be not terribly concerned with spending our tax dollars in court, as the WPCA refused to settle any of the cases.
I’m going to now tell you why this was the worst logical, legal, and financial decision the WPCA could have made.
Originally, this pre-trial had been scheduled earlier. The WPCA requested a continuance to a future date as their expert witness (their appraiser) had not finished his appraisals of our properties, to back up the WPCA’s contention that the plaintiffs have all benefited to the tune of $12,060 merely by the existence of the sewer. The continuance was granted and the court date moved to the 21st.
The day prior to court, the plaintiffs had still not been provided with a copy of the WPCA appraiser’s reports on our properties. The continuance was solely for this purpose. Early on the 21st (the day of court) our attorney received a simple email from the WPCA’s attorney listing each plaintiffs property and an appraisal number. No reports, no documentation, no conclusions — nothing. Just a list of names, and numbers. And this is where it gets really good.
The WPCA’s appraiser stated that four of the five properties have benefited to the tune of $8,000. The fifth property to the tune of $25,000 (which is absurd and I’m not going to address that at all right now). Focusing on the four properties, out of the gate, the WPCA has no leg to stand on for any assessment greater than $8,000.
Understand that. We’re assessed $12,060. The WPCA’s appraiser cannot justify more than $8,000. It is highly unlikely that the WPCA is going to win a judgment any higher than $8,000. That means they will likely lose $4,000 on each of the four cases. That’s $16,000.
Seeing their appraiser’s numbers, we made a settlement offer. It was a fair offer. In fact, it’s more than I wanted to settle for and I won’t be making that offer again.
As previously stated, the WPCA refused to accept our offer. In fact, they refused to accept any offer, even when their own appraiser cannot justify more than an $8,000 assessment! Simply put, the pre-trial judge was never able to get the point of conveying our offer, as the WPCA refused to settle for any amount.
That’s mind boggling. If you have no way of justifying your position, why would you continue to fight for it? Perhaps because the money to support the fight isn’t coming out of your pocket? Perhaps because your boss told you to do, and he doesn’t care? I’m not sure.
All I know is that the WPCA had the chance to walk out of court, with a minimal loss. Instead, they choose to refuse compromise, and will spend untold thousands of dollars in upcoming legal expenses fighting appeals on assessments their own expert witness cannot justify. Truly, that is an irresponsible, and illogical attitude.
As the plaintiffs left court that day, we were miffed by the WPCA’s lack of interest in a settlement, considering they couldn’t back up their assessments. In fact, I was so irritated by this illogical and irresponsible choice by the WPCA, that I contacted a first selectman candidate that very evening and told him / her the story I’m telling here.
I wanted this person to understand how poor of a choice the WPCA had made that day. I wanted this person to know that the plaintiffs had made a very reasonable settlement offer, which would save the town thousands in legal expenses, and that the WPCA is going to lose $16,000 as they have no leg to stand on, by their own expert witness’ admission. Bluntly, I stated, “I don’t know who’s calling the shots in these cases, but whomever it is, is not doing so with logical reasoning or an eye to saving the town money. Personally, I suspect it’s (first selectman) Black directing (town planner) Hughes directing (WPCA chairman) Murray, but I have no way of knowing. If you get elected, I hope you’ll take this information and look at it logically, and perhaps we can address the issue of settlement again, once Mr. Black is gone.”
I also conveyed our suspicions that the WPCA may have balked at settlement as they may have thought, “If we settle now, we’re going to have to settle with anyone else who appeals.” If that is what they thought, then they need to fire their law firm and hire one that knows the law. Unfortunately for the rest of you, that ship has sailed. None of you can appeal your benefit assessment now. It’s too late. You’re stuck with it. That’s the law, and their lawyers should know this. So, just in case Black, Hughes, Murray, or anyone on the WPCA is reading this, settling with us does not mean you’ll be settling with anyone else. It’s too late for the rest of the “Phase 1″ residents.
Suffice it to say, that barring any other reasoning to which I’m not privy, I suspect a settlement may be in the future, with a new Board of Selectmen. As soon as this town is operated by people who drop their personal agendas and emotional responses, we’re going to see some logical and responsive governing.
And, as selectman candidate Amy Traversa put it in a recent Rivereast article, “no more sidewalks to nowhere.” That’s good. I’m tired of this town going nowhere.
–Dave
P.S. Note to Ken Hjulstrom: Please don’t write to the Rivereast again, and tell the sewer district residents to try and settle. We did, and the current administration is irresponsible and has no interest. They never have, otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this current state of affairs, and I really don’t care to hear / read you put us down again for exercising our right to appeal. Lastly, you were pro sewer expansion during the “Phase 2″ public hearings without much regard to the financial impact on the sewer district residents. I suspect little has changed since then.
Dave, I commend you on this article! Well said and such a concise statement of the facts! I think the residents of Marlborough should be aware that the WPCA continues to waste tax dollars on frivolous expenditures.
The bottom line is the WPCA refuses to acknowledge that they grossly inflated the benefit assessment levied on the sewer district residents. Yet they are willing to waste tax payer money to fight the appeals because they refuse to admit they are wrong. Either way the WPCA is wasting taxpayer money.
I look forward to attending the WPCA meeting on November 10, 2011 to hear their explanation about why they continue to waste taxpayer money.
I encourage all sewer district resident s to attend the meeting to ask the WPCA about why the grossly inflated the benefit assessment and stuck the sewer district resident s with, not only an inadequate sewer system, but are asking them to bear the burden of the cost of the sewer even though the WPCA obviously knows they are paying more than their fair share of the sewer.
Jack Murray, as the Chairman of the WPCA owes not only the sewer district resident why he grossly over inflated the benefit assessment but the entire town as to why the sewer is costing disproportionately more than previously stated.
I think this clearly shows that the WPCA doesn’t care and that they will do whatever they have to, regardless of the cost to the taxpayers of the Town of Marlborough.
According to the WPCA minutes, the WPCA is 53K over budget. Of the 53K, @13K is for the benefit assessment appeals. Jack Murray has, yet again, asked the Board of Selectman and the Board of Finance to bail out the WPCA. The fact that the WPCA is over budget once again clearly demonstrates the sewer project continues to be mismanaged.
Jack Murray does not like to admit he is wrong. So, instead of admitting he is wrong, Jack will repeatedly ask the Board of Selectman and the Board of Finance for additional money to fund the appeals even though the WPCA’s expert cannot substantiate the WPCA’s demand for a 12K assessment.
At this point, one has to question the integrity of the WPCA.
Here’s my take on this, Stacey. I’m not sure why the WPCA is asking the BOF for anything. The WPCA is not legally required to collect a benefit assessment. They are not legally required to collect a usage charge. If they collected neither, the cost of construction, operation, and maintenance would fall to the town, just like every other town project. Why the WPCA feels the need to ask the BOF for money, is unclear. The deficit should automatically fall back to the town.
It’s likely, however, that the regulations have been crafted in such a way as to prevent this. That is why new blood is necessary on the WPCA. The regulations need to be fixed, making things optional. EDU calculations also need to be changed, as the WPCA is effectively putting the business in town, out of business.
I believe usage should be much like a tax return. You can either take the standard deduction (whatever EDUs they want to assign you), or you can itemize (buy a water meter and report your usage). This would give businesses an option on how they want to pay for their usage.
The regs also need to be changed to make connection optional, and remove benefit assessments from people who are not connected. This should have been the default from day one, but the WPCA, Black, and Hughes would have nothing of it. I tried really hard to make this happen, and Black tossed out my efforts with a $15k legal opinion. Unfortunately, the majority of district residents have succumb to fear and intimidation from the WPCA, et al. and have connected. But changing the regs would help make this fair in case expansion ever occurs.