Belleville, VBT leaders plan to sign new Downriver Sewer pact

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
Wayne County’s new CEO Warren Evans has revoked the County Commission’s acceptance of the new Downriver Sewer Agreement and sent 13 communities into battle – including the City of Belleville and Van Buren Township.
The commission vote in December was 14-0 with one commissioner absent. Although Evans had a window to rescind things he didn’t like after being sworn in in January, he only dealt with the sewer agreement Feb. 20 and sent out a notice that since not all the communities had accepted the agreement, the county was revoking acceptance, effective immediately.
On Monday, both the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees and the Belleville City Council heard reports on the new sewer agreement and how the new county executive seems to claim ownership of the sewer system, which the communities paid for.
Both municipalities indicated they would sign the 20-year agreement at their next meetings: Belleville on March 16 and VBT on March 17. All 13 municipal members must sign the agreement for it to be accepted and many of the larger communities have signed.
Belleville Mayor Kerreen Conley told the council that the original Downriver Sewer System Agreement ran for 50 years, from 1961 to 2012, and for the past 4 ½ years they have been negotiating a new agreement.
Mayor Conley said in December the agreement wasn’t perfect, but the commission passed it and the 13 communities were working through details they didn’t like before signing it.
Conley said the communities wanted Evans to look at the agreement and a meeting was planned. Two representatives from the county came 45 minutes late. Then another meeting with the county was set and at the last minute the county decided not to attend. The communities met together and there was a lot of dialog and they encouraged each other to sign the agreement.
Each community forwarded a letter to Evans that he doesn’t have the authority to do what he did.
Conley said State Rep. Kurt Heise is introducing a bill in the state legislature that says before you sell an asset you have to own it.
“Ownership is yet to be determined,” Conley said. “We feel since we paid for it, we own it.”
“This is really a pretty hot, big topic for our 13 communities,” Conley said. “We paid hundreds of millions of dollars on the system. None came from the county.”
At the VBT work/study session DPW Director James Taylor reported on the situation, saying at their Feb. 25 meeting the downriver communities challenged Evans’ authority.
“To be direct, we believe he has no authority to veto the commission’s action,” Taylor said.
Taylor said it is believed “the approval of the agreement will strengthen any potential attempts to ignore the significant financial investment our communities have made.”
Taylor provided a large packet of information on the issue, along with a letter from township attorney Patrick McCauley in support of recommended approval.
Taylor said the new agreement preserves the communities’ ability to contest ownership if it is decided at some future date that the communities want to challenge that issue and initiate litigation.