The Cumming City Council extended the date for customers of the Habersham Wastewater Facility to pay a hefty fee and fired back at claims of wrongdoing over the recent takeover of the local facility.
At a meeting on Tuesday, council members voted 5-0 to extend the date by which customers have to pay by 60 days and reduced the interest for those choosing to pay in installments from 4 percent to 1 percent after hearing from resident Lon Tanner.
In April, the council approved the city taking over the facility following a fire at a pump station.
In May, customers served by the facility off Buford Dam Road were sent letters informing them they would be charged a one-time fee of $6,250 per residence to connect with city sewer, which could be discounted to $5,000 if paid before July 31. Otherwise, a minimum of $100 could be paid monthly until the full balance is paid off.
The extension will mean payment will not be due until the end of September.
Tanner said the short time-frame made it hard to come up with the money.
“I would like to take advantage, personally, of paying the $5,000 upfront, but, unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of money right now,” he said. “It’s a substantial amount of money to come up with.”
The council also agreed to a request from Tanner to keep greenspace around the facility.
Mayor Ford Gravitt said about two-thirds of customers have paid the reduced rate and about one-third had worked out a payment plan.
Gravitt said if all residents had paid the $5,000, it would total about $2 million, meaning the city would have to pay the remaining $2 million to update the system.
“The engineers estimate to get the plant up and running is going to cost $4 million,” he said.
Since the letters were received, George Butler, an attorney representing the Habersham Action Committee, the group that has operated the facility, has called the documents and methods used by the city to take over the plant “fraudulent and unconstitutional.”
Butler has also claimed the city has kept money owed to the HAC for sewer charges.
Gravitt detailed the city’s side of the issues, which he said would likely be decided by the courts.
He said the city paid the HAC $1.7-$2 million of customer fees collected by the city that “didn’t go to updating and maintaining the plant” and that the committee had illegally tapped into the city sewer.
“We found out that the Habersham Action Committee had authorized some contractor to illegally tap into the city sewer and the city has been treating the sewer for over seven years,” Gravitt said. “We’ve been sending the Habersham Action Committee money back for their sewer, so we have a situation here that will probably be handled in the courts.”
Gravitt also criticized a recent decision by the state Environmental Protection Division to give the HAC a permit to discharge treated waste into Lake Lanier, which HAC members have said was a reason the city wanted to take over the plant.
Butler has previously said any lawsuit would be to recoup tap fees paid by customers, and other customers brought up filing an injunction to stop the takeover at a recent meeting of members of the five affected neighborhoods held by Forsyth County District 5 Commissioner Laura Semanson.
The existing facility sits on 10 acres and serves about 400 residents in the Habersham subdivision. The system dates to the 1970s, when it was more common for large neighborhoods to build their own due to a lack of infrastructure.
Matters surrounding the plant have previously been the center of legal and political issues.
The new facility would first take on about 111,000 gallons per day, and a second phase would reach 7.5 million gallons per day. A 15-million-gallons-per-day plant is the ultimate goal and is slated for about 2050.