Saugus mobile park residents still waiting for water relief

SAUGUS – Nearly 40 members of a Route 1 mobile home park packed the Board of Selectmen meeting Tuesday hoping to finally hear they’ll be getting the relief they were promised months ago, but it still hasn’t arrived.Park residents, along with 1,400 other renters, saw their water/sewer bills skyrocket earlier this year after the selectmen and Town Meeting changed the way the bills were configured.Town officials were hoping to give low-end users a break when it shifted a higher burden of the bill onto high-end users. However, establishments such as the mobile home park and several condominium complexes use one only one meter for all their units, which makes them high-end users.Selectmen Michael Kelleher has been adamant about seeking relief for the park residents and other renters, but so far he’s come up short.Since the board only handles sewer rates, members sat down last week with five representatives of Town Meeting, which handles water rates, to try and hammer out a new rating system.Kelleher told the board Tuesday that after lengthy discussions with the town’s environmental attorney George Hailer, he said the only way the town could truly affect change would be to move to a system that used a residential rate and a separate commercial rate.Kelleher said he would like to reconvene the committee that met last week to look at the possibility of moving to a commercial and residential rate structure.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani didn’t necessarily argue against the structure, but said there was a surplus in both water and sewer at the moment, which provides some much needed stability in the enterprise accounts.”I don’t want to be premature, but it doesn’t appear we will have to raise rates in 2009,” he said. “We have sufficient revenue for 2009.”But Bisignani pointed out that if the rates are changed it could cost the town upwards of $200,000. Kelleher argued that the new system generated $200,000 only because, in his view, 1,490 residents were overcharged.Selectman Stephen Horlick said the town should think about giving a portion of any possible surplus back to residents.”People are looking for any relief we can give them,” he said.Horlick said even cutting residents’ bills by one or two dollars would be good.Bisignani said reducing rates now would only bring on a hardship sooner and cause rates to increase next year.The board will sit with Town Meeting members next Thursday to take up the issue.In the meantime, mobile park residents were still left waiting for any relief.