Saugus selectmen lower I and I fee

SAUGUS-With very little fanfare, Selectmen voted to lower the Inflow and Infiltration fee charged to developers from a 6-1 ratio to a 4-1 ratio.The vote came just after Selectman Stephen Horlick asked to set a meeting so the board, which also acts as sewer commissioners, could receive an update on the town-wide sewer project. Horlick was the lone dissenter in the vote only because he said he’d prefer to wait until after the meeting.”We’ll have the meeting in January,” he said. “We haven’t had a meeting in a long time and we have two new members that need to be brought up to date. I think it’s appropriate to hold off.”But the majority thought otherwise and it passed with little other discussion.In 2004, the Department of Environmental Protection hit the town with a consent order requiring it to clean up its sewer system. Part of that clean up effort has been charging developers, including homeowners putting on an addition, an “I and I” fee.Initially developers were required to remove 10 gallons of wastewater from the town’s system for every one gallon they wanted to add. Based on the formula of 110-gallons per day per bedroom, at a cost of $3 per gallon, it could cost $3,300 to tie in a one-bedroom home.In January, the board voted to drop the fee to a 6-1 ratio, which cut the cost to developers by nearly $4,000. The 4-1 ratio further reduces the expense to $1,320 to tie a one-bedroom home into sewer system.It is a move Selectman Michael Kelleher said has been a long time coming. He also said while he respected Horlick’s opinion that the board should wait, he disagreed because he felt he’d been waiting long enough.Kelleher argued that the consent order came with certain benchmarks and once those benchmarks were met the town could lower the I and I ratio.”We are well above the standing that would allow us to go to a 4-1 ratio,” he said. “We’re well over 1 million gallons (removed from the system) as of the last report. It’s as simple as that.”Horlick asked colleagues Donald Wong and Stephen Castinetti, who have yet to attend a sewer commission meeting, if they were up to date on the issues at hand.”I’ve been here the last four years, but it’s up to you if you want to vote before you’re brought up to date on the issues,” he said.Neither man responded before the vote was taken.