Water Pollution Control Authority - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting of the WPCA to order. It is 7:31. Um we have present Demetriki, Randy Nixon, Rob McCarthy, um his parents Lumbard. vitals. There we go. Randy, Brian Cornell, guests from the press, the new public. I do not have your agenda. So,

I'm going to alternate as a member. Oh, there John Flick is is here and Dennis Malutoo is also online who's your regular member. And that's all I see. Is there anyone else out there somewhere? Is Erica on to take

Andrea? I've got the recording on so she can do it from the recording. Okay. But I think her intent is to jump on at some point. Thank you. Do you have um electing a chair on your pardon? Do you have electing a chair on your agenda? The election of officers. Yeah, it is on the agenda. We're wondering since this is pretty much a new WPCA, right?

Some people may not know each other yet. Is it possible to postpone that election until February? If not, then yes, we'll go forward March. I'm sorry, March. I mean it's I don't know do you can we do it that way or do we have to do it tonight? Personally, we should do it tonight because we need to have a chairman so that we can move ahead with like you gota have somebody that's it's just a question people are new here and they don't know I agree with Mary but if we have to do it tonight then we have to do it's on your agenda so it really should be accomplished at this meeting

I'm just looking up your agenda so you already heard instead of election of officers, right? Election of officers is the the call to order the first item on your agenda. So, we have any nominations from the floor, board chairman. Yes.

Well, maybe in light of what Mary said, folks could give us a little, you know, in our introduction, maybe say a little bit about yourself. Um so that have a little a little depth or context in order to complete the task of electing officers. Okay. Do we have a motion to move number three to number two on our agenda? I'll make that motion. All in favor? Okay. So, let's discuss welcoming you WPCA members for introduce themselves once again.

Say a little bit about yourself maybe and your background. Um, my name is John Granny. I live on Portland View. I'm a retired PE teacher of 36 years. 35 of those years were spent in Hartford. Um, I've been retired since uh October of 24 and um was getting a little bored. So, I thought uh you should have called me

um other than you know just doing stuff around the house. I I thought I'd get a little bit in the town since especially these uh water pollution as a hot topic issue source. So glad to be here. Okay. Sally Wowitz. Um live in area D, one of the aliens. Um um I've been a resident full-time for 28 years, but I've been here my whole life. My parents were here before me. My mother owned a store on Hartford Avenue for many years, Shirley's Candy Store. And they've been talking about sewers here. My father never bought. We never moved here because of that. Just so everyone knows, that's how long it's been going on. And um well, because my husband taught me because he's too hotaded to do it, but I've been to tons of meetings. I'm very involved.

I'm Susan Neway. Um I retired um the department of public health in 2017. I was a licenser then 21 years. I licensed facilities. I worked in the legal division. I wrote consent order statements of charges ceases. Um I'm also a public and um one interest is also personal. I live on Corsino Avenue which is part of Miami Beach Association and um they're you know they voted they recently voted for Simpson's eleation and uh I just bought a house on last July and so I kind of have a personal interest in what's going on. Uh, Andrea Lumbard. Um, my background is nursing and public health and um, I've been on this commission for a while. I'm your current treasurer. Um,

from Laura Parent. I'm from Hawk Nest

and I've always had an interest in the subject. Um, we moved, we bought the house here in 2009 and then 2010 the sewer thing started and I had a very large friendship with Sandy Garvin. I'm sure you've all heard about. Um, and I worked with her and researched with her and um, contrary to the what the world may have thought, Sandy was a conservationist. She just didn't believe that sewers were the answer. and Hawk Nest as owned by her family were all in very up to up to whatever putting in sewer septic tanks and doing what needed to be done because they ran Hawk Nest and it wouldn't serve their purposes to have polluted waters and stuff. So she was the she was my inspiration and the genesis on my thought in the subject. We moved here in 2015 full-time when I retired. And I love Hawk Nest. I love the people. I love the environment. And I am all behind protecting the environment. But I'm also very interested and conflicted in sewers versus other options. That's me.

Uh Robert McCarthy. I've been on WPCA for I think about 15 years now. Um so I was involved with the original looking at the Cherry Stones property at that time. Um I'm actually an environmental engineer and I've lived in town my whole life in the fire department too. So pretty involved in town in general, been around forever.

Andy Nixon lived in town for 44 years. Uh I'm a 45 and a half almost 46 year uh technical consultant to water and wastewater utilities. So I've been on the commission for six years just about this commission for 29 years. I was a chairman one time and I I have master degree in mechanical engineering. I spent six years as in engineer on Newton 3 as designer.

I'm a plumber heating contractor also.

I'm Mary Daly. I don't have a lot of qualifications actually. I um came here I think I bought in 200 I don't even know but I've been involved as a member of the WPCA for I think three four years now and attending almost every WPCA meeting for much longer than that as soon as sewers were first announced. So I've taken a great interest in sewer and in alternatives as well done a lot of research on the subject paid close attention to what's going on in this town not just in regard to seweries but other aspects. So, but in terms of a professional background, I was a software engineer my career at Etna and enjoyed it immensely. But here I am now today on the WPC.

Uh I'm Brian Cornell. I was an all to WPCA for year and a half and uh now it's my turn to be in a voting position. Um, I have some really strong thoughts about the ways that this committee should operate at each and every meeting and I think Martha addressed part of that. Uh, also uh I want no part of being chairman or vice chairman at all. I do enough that at home as it is. Uh my wife and I have flown property down here and spend the summers down here uh eight out of 12 months and I'm in area V. Uh and also in before that we used to rent from Garvin and his dad and all that kind of stuff or Hulk's nest. So um there's got to be an alternative and I would be glad to work on looking at that with someone who wants to lead that charge. Thanks.

John Flick, do you want to go next? John, can you hear us? Uh, Dennis. They might be muted.

Yeah, this is this is John. Um, I'm an alternate. Um, I want to stay an alternate for a while. Um, I moved here in 21. I'm a retired CFO. I joined because I thought I was going to be involved on the financial side of helping out Andrea or helping out long-term on the finance and also I've dealt a lot with contracts. Um, so I'm still an alternate and will help out in any way. On the finance side, as an as an aside, when we were living in Philadelphia, I was on the other side of this because we forced our town to put in sewers, but it was the opposite. We we had ground that would not perk. So, we needed sewers. So, but I'm available and I want to stay involved to help out on the financial side and look at alternatives. And I've been through all of Jim's numbers and all of Steve's numbers and I'm happy to continue to do that.

Dennis, would you like to introduce yourself? Dennis, are you muted? Yes. Go ahead, Dennis. Can you unmute yourself, Dennis? Can't hear you. Okay, here we go.

Uh, I'll start over. Um, my name is Dennis Maluso. I live on Portland Avenue, next door neighbor to Mary and Jim. And um, I've been here my whole life, all 75 years. I've owned a property in 1985, nine months after my oldest son was born, and he's now going on 41. Um, my parents owned a bakery on Hartford Avenue, tried to make it all year long. And as you can imagine, back then it was uh rather difficult after September came about. U everybody came around. There was a lot more hustle and bustle on Hartford Avenue. Um, it was the the place where families

could come here in June

and work their heart out until September and make a nice living for themselves, whether they're serving hamburgers at uh, Palmer's restaurant or uh, having their kids at Kitty Land or at uh, at the uh, dance hall or one of the many alcoholic establishes establishments we had. Uh I feel because because we are a a seasonal community. We don't have the same number of people here that the other private beaches have. We have it's almost a ghost town come October and not until April or May. So, I'm I'm a staunch supporter of of septic. Uh I've never had a town pay for sewer systems. It's always been either the developer or in Newington's case, the Metropolitan District Commission. They put in sewers. They only charged you your frontage. That's how they got paid. And that's what what is a viable operation. Not by the number of bedrooms, not by the number of uh square footage, but across your frontage. Uh that's one thing, but I'd rather see

septic systems in here. Um we have uh the boring tests. I've had a a uh test done by uh

uh Ron Rose, who was the sanitarian, and dug down six feet, no water, with each layer exposed. He said, "Why don't we go down two more feet to take any any question out of this?" We went two more feet. That's 8 feet. No water, no pollution, nothing. So, and that's what this area is made of. It's not it's not muck. It's not, you know, rock. It's sandy soil in in Pete from when it was a farm. That's my thing. And I've been on this now, I think it's been since 2014 as a as a full member and probably 10 years prior to that as a an observer. Thank you.

So, let's um proceed to the election of officers. Okay. Do we have any nominations on the floor for chairman? I have a nomination that we nominate Mary Daly as chairman of the WPCA. Second that. I'll second it. Do we have any more nominations? How many Andrea Lberg second that? So I'd like to um suggest a co-chair with that a workable solution.

We have several uh commissions that do have co-chairs. So I'd like to nominate Rob. I'm going to decline. do. Sorry. So, on the floor we have Mary Dailyaly. We have Andrea Lumbard. Do we have any more nominations for chair? Okay, nominations are closed. All those in favor of Mary Daly as chair, please raise your hand. I

five. All righty. Quest question. Are alternates allowed to vote? No. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So, just uh regular Mary, you're voting for yourself. I can vote for my chest. Yes, you're a regular chest. John 1, two, three. four five status six. You got mine? Yeah. Okay.

All those in favor of Andrea Lumbard as chair. Raise your hands. Uh is John Flick still with us? Okay. Hey Jim, this is Corey Bulock. I'm on the board. No, you're not. I I was never I told that I resigned from vice chair. I'm still a member. No, you're not. Uh I'm pretty sure I am in the email that I sent to Martha. I'm pretty sure you're not. She asked me She asked me if I still wanted to be on the board and I said yes.

You was not on the board. Well, then we have two in the numbers. Mary, that's not your decision to make if I'm on the board or not. That's Martha's decision to make. And I can show you the email that says from Martha if I still want to be on the board or not. Did you Corey, this is Katie. Hey Katie. Hi. We don't have you listed on the board because with the appointments I don't see Corey Bullock. You said your name was.

Yes. Corey Bullock. I was vice chair and with an email with Martha resigned and Martha asked me if I was still going to be on the board and I responded to her yes.

And Katie, we do not have No. Cory as a member. I don't have him as listed as a current member. I don't I do not recall appointing him at our meeting with the board of selectments. So, we will go with When was that meeting, Jim? Uh, it was our last selectman meeting. Last Tuesday. Wednesday. All the seats are full. I'm looking at on board right now. Well, that's that's that's very interesting. Should I forward someone the email that says to Martha asking me if I still want to be on the board and me suggesting that I do?

We won't resolve it tonight, Lord, but but please do and we will take we'll have Martha take that up. All right. Thank you. Uh so I'm sorry, one more time with a show of hands for Andrea. One, two, three, and there's no one online, right? So, we have So, Mary, you are the chair and I would like to turn this over to you as the chair since I don't have experience as a chair, but

I think the second nomination is for the vice chair. the vice chair and then we're going to have treasurer secretary. We don't have a secretary. You don't have a secretary. No, just the three. Okay. All right. So, sorry. I was not prepared to run this meeting tonight. So,

thanks again. I've been a little bit interested in time because it's supposed to be sleep and snow by 900 p.m. and some of us have a long commute to get back. So, we could move along. Um, so nominations for vice chair. I'll make a nomination of Dennis Malo for vice chair of the WPCA. I'll second it. I can second. No, the chair doesn't. I'll second. You can't jump.

All on paper. You get second choice. Oh, any nominations for vice chair? I'm so sorry. I'm kind of vice chair. Nominations for other vice nominations for vice chair. You're going to keep hearing me until like Other nominations for vice chair. Still doing a show of hands. Chair for vice chair. Demetri, are you interested? No. Ryan, are you you said no? No. Thank you.

Show hands for Dennis Muza for vice chair. Susan, John, Dennis, so congratulations, Dennis, your vice chair. Okay, nominations for treasurer. Are you willing to continue as treasure? Nominate Andrea. Yeah. this but they're talking. Yes. Who else do we have?

You take get a nomination for Andrea as treasurer. Yeah. Second it. Okay. All in favor hands. Dennis.

Yes. Two, three, four, five, six. That's unanimous treasure. Um, that moves us to approval minutes for December 9th, 2025 special meeting minutes. Um, members, I don't think you read the minutes, so maybe we should postpone that. meeting. I didn't get to read the So, Mary, you need a motion to table. What? Do you need a motion to table the minute? Motion to table for the December 9th, 2025 special meeting.

I'll make that motion. Thank you. I'll second it. Budget update. Next. We do need to vote on Thank you so much. Okay. All in favor? All in favor by approval update and

so we had no process invoices for this month. Our remaining balance is $86,295. Uh we have many encumbered invoices and most of them are illegal. So we've exceeded our line item today. So, right now, um, I picked them up today. We have an invoice for Susman and Shakiro for $9,194.50. Um, have we still been paid? Secretary. It's uh I was handed a packet for $53,11950

and That's from update Kelly and Spalaci. So I'm going to need to go through that. So So you have to review that first. You're not asking. No, I'm I'm telling you what looks like it's in Humber. So we have never voted on paying bills that were already in the budget. Okay. Um but we could talk about that process. And normally I we go by what's in the budget and usually approve my report. If you want to do something different, we can talk about that.

Um and so that's that's the budget update for there. But also with the ARPA funds, so we were um allocated $158,347 for ARPA funds. The remaining balance to date is $144,659.50. And um I had a meeting this month with deep de uh Lee Rogers Kimberly who's the deep finance person uh Frank Knowing and myself because this money has been dedicated to the shared infrastructure cost. So we are reviewing um how to use that effectively and we want that this these monies have to be expensed by December of 2026. So we're going through um past invoices what we can use that for. Um so how we have done it in the past is if there's when Erica submits her time sheet for clerical that's in the budget I can approve that. Um, and we want to do that in a timely way because um, it want to get her paid. There's 26 time periods and we want to get that done.

Uh, uh, that's our software for this the pumpouts. That's a steady. It comes in the summer. It's around $3,000. We usually don't have to do any any other invoices, even something in the budget. not any but something in the budget like uh attorney fees we us our process has been to have two approvers. So the attorney fe the attorney bills often come those are the only ones that come emailed scanned directly to Martha. So I would there we would share those with the the chairperson and myself review that before it gets approved for being paid and then that goes to Anita our finance director and Tracy and then Tracy would cut the check.

So been our process I don't know so I wanted to bring that up and then the budget is being reviewed right now as we speak. Um since we didn't have a chairperson to go over the budget, um Margaret had submitted [clears throat] last year's budget and today I came in work the budget out with her and Anita and we're asking for $100,676. Um what we did was put more money into attorney fees. So, um, and see if I have the most recent one here. So, we asked for an increase from $45,000 last year to $68,000 for the ne next fiscal year. We have steady um allocations for clerical. Um, that would be Erica taking minutes, but when she does work as the pump out, she gets a higher rate. So, we have an a administrative assistant line item. So we have um we budgeted 2930 hours and then 3420 respectively for those roles. Um then we have um office supplies, postage, advertising. Uh, we did leave some money into consulting 7500 trying to anticipate are we going to be bringing anybody in, not really knowing what we're going to be doing this year. Um, and then I put in $5,000 in miscellaneous. We hadn't used miscellaneous in the past, but we got into a position this year where we weren't able to pay for the referendum and we had to ask the town to use one of

their two pre-budgeted referendums and that was about $5,000. So, it just seemed prudent that we would put more money into miscellaneous. I have no idea how the finance committee and the budget meeting is going because normally I would go to that meeting with the chair and we would present the budget. So, I'm not sure. We brought up testing today. Testing isn't hasn't been in the budget. Um, so I heard today there there might be some other funds that we would have to get approval at. So, that's [clears throat] all that's that's pretty much where I'm at. Thanks.

What do they do with final? Um, so today's meeting they would they should probably vote on our budget. I have no idea. I'm trying to follow the bouncing ball. Yeah. So there was an agenda and it listed us in order. If this got out early, I was going to try to run down and ask make a motion to switch the orders. This didn't get out early. We had no one else to send. So we'll find out what happens. Thank you. Um, so I guess I need to make a motion. Do you want to approve my report? Yes. So move second my motion.

Thank you. Uh, the next on the agenda is review of meeting with board select and plan for the next steps. Mary to do an all in favor for that vote. All in favor of accepting Andrea's budget review. Absolutely. Nice job. Hi. Thank you, Dennis. Any opposed? Any oppose? Any sustain?

Right. Um the next is review of meeting with board of select and the plan for next steps. We've all just sat through the border swiping meeting. I personally agree with their approach of looking at all avenues. We're not ruling out sewers completely yet, but we also are going to open up our doors and look at alternatives. See what the the expense is, see what the testing will cost, see what kind of testing we should be doing, and try to move forward in multiple directions. So Mary, one of the things that we normally do is have a liaison the associations that are moving forward on the project and they have regular meetings. So we're going to need to give them a liazison person who will help bridge the communication between the two groups.

I do have to decide that tonight. I'd like to let the new people kind of get settled in and before we make those kind of decisions. Okay. Um the only in that it probably be you or designate someone until you change direction because things are happening pretty quickly and if we're not seamlessly communicating would you read a newspaper article? I mean there's a lot going on. So, we probably I would recommend I'm not going to make a motion yet. This is just a discussion um that we um do discuss that at today's meeting and at least come up with a temporary person.

Is the board of selectman invited to those meetings? I think Martha always had and uh Jim has a has a a role in those meetings, but specifically someone from the WPCA discussion.

I'm all set up. Thank you. I I'm leaning towards even though I know there is a lot going on and you're the chairman now so you can be the point person for now because next month next let's decide next month who should actually be moving okay so I'll be the leaison for this month we'll talk about it next month I think you should participate every meeting because it's very very uh Don't question them about it then you will know more than we did

you know so my approach would be to share every all information with everyone I don't plan to hold back any information from anyone I think that's been one of my biggest objections with this committee to begin with and so I do plan to be an open book on everything that I know with this committee that's why we elected Thank you. Appreciate that.

Um review of meeting while we just did that status of the private beach association actions with sewer project. We know that they plan to move forward that DEP has been given them the okay to sign the contracts um and that they're funding they're pursuing the funding um for clean water funds and the forgivable loan which will be 100% applied to the shared infrastructure. What that means to some view is since the 15 million is applied to the shared infrastructure that we are still we can still be part of that project without penalty financial penalty if we choose to go that way later on. Cost agreement has not been signed yet by the town. Um so I'm not sure what I think that's up to the selectment in our legal department to pursue that avenue. question. My understanding early on that um if Sound View and the other beaches didn't sign on to the sewer project that it couldn't be done unless Sound View was part of it.

Well, That should be true. If you kind of discarded your own formula for affordability, would be true. But now Dave is saying we don't care about affordability anymore. It just seems to me that you know now Miami Beach and Pole Colony are going forward and my understanding is they last I heard from Miami Beach they intend to start in April.

That's a true and old choice as well. Yeah. And um I just you know that that question was was out there in my mind. Well, how can how can they move forward if if it's not you know there's if sound view is not involved which

it's because of the way they changed the allocation of the funds. So initially the 15 million was to be divided according to the amount of share. So we were buish would have gotten 29.7% of that 15 million plus 25% clean water. When deep changed their opinion they said no we're going to take the whole 15 million and we're going to apply it to the 25 million for the infrastructure. Mhm.

Therefore, free private beach associations can move forward because now basically the funding is [clears throat] directed from the infrastructure leaving only clean water funds for the internal budgets. Those bids still stand for the three private beach associations. The internal project bid for South View has expired. Most likely we if we do join, we would have to go back out to bed. So at this point, the three private beach associations have voted and decided to move forward without telling about it and they have the ements in place to do so. the seven people at Miami Beach. I kind of sw Yeah, there weren't a lot of people who voted to begin with and was close.

So that's that's what all that I do know about it.

Okay. Thanks. um a deep communication as you all heard Martha's trying to set up a meeting with deep deep promised to talk with Martha the town in February it's now the 10th so that should be coming within a week or two I would expect but I do know that deep also said that they wanted to make sure that pre three private beach associations signed and were on board before they came back and talked to the town um correspond respondance. I don't think we have any correspondence this month. Public comment and open it up to public comment. Any public comment? Steve,

could it could Hello. Yeah. Hi, this is Bill Randazzo. Bill. Bill. Bill. I Bill Randazzo. You think I was recognized? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't I didn't hear that. I apologize. He's on a good play. That's okay. Are you Are you uh still in line? No, I'm not in line. We still pardon me. I Does Bill want to talk and I'll talk after him? That's fine by me. I'm I'm sorry. I didn't know who they were asking the question to, so I apologize. So, please go ahead.

Congratulations, Mary, on your uh congratulations, Mary, on your election. I'm glad to see that Martha and Jim were able to remove the people that were an impediment for you not to be chair and so that you can uh pretty much be guided by them. That is good I guess for the town so that the town speaks with one voice. Just remember that you're responsible for water quality in the whole town. said, "This is a town WPCA, not a Sound View WPCA." But based on introductions, it looks more like a Sound View WPCA than a Town WPCA. But in any event, I wish you luck. Uh I'll I'll probably uh check in every now and then to see what's going on. But uh uh I I think I think fighting deep uh I will be tracking how much money this is going to cost the town in testing and attorneys and fighting deep to see if it was worth uh u not passing the referendum which was a minimal liability to to the town but uh good luck going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Sen.

Anyone else? Uh, this is Bill Randazzle. Can I talk now or? Mhm. Yep. Go ahead, Bill.

Well, f first of all, Mary, I'm uh I'm ecstatic that you were elected chairman of this committee. I think you'll do a great job. you've uh showed your diligence in the past and your your your knowhow and uh I think that will be great for the committee. Um I we we've talked in the past and the last gentleman who talked you were well aware of what was happening in the town. It wasn't just the beach association. there was other waterways that you're going to be involved with and you were very comfortable with that and and I appreciate your initiative going forward and and just you knowing that there is different responsibilities. I think it's important that we all know that and I think that's beneficial to all of us. So, I thank you for volunteering your time and I'm very proud to have you as chairman of the board.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Bill. Anyone else? Okay. Well, that ends public comments. Motion to adjurnn. So move second. on 30.