Could deal be near on water, sewer?

Next month, the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and Culpeper Town Council plan to discuss specific financial details and economic or growth elements that could influence a proposed regional water and sewer authority.

That decision was reached Thursday night following the latest joint meeting between the two governing bodies. The overall issue however, has been floating around for a decade or longer. Council and the BOS last met together on the subject in January. Their next meeting on the matter is set for March 4.

On Thursday, both bodies agreed in theory to have a final deal in place by June. Then the matter will likely be taken to town voters in a November referendum.

In exchange for transferring ownership of its water and sewer infrastructure to the authority, the town would be allowed to expand its borders without resorting to annexation. That process is generally considered hostile, lengthy and expensive.

If accepted as presented, the agreement would prohibit the town from annexing land or seeking city status for 25 years. Another goal of the proposal is to eliminate the need for individual “three-party” agreements between the town, county and potential new utility customers.

On Thursday, two recurring key points of dispute arose again: When, where and how should the town expand its borders? And how much does the town stand to lose financially by giving control of its infrastructure to the authority?

“We don’t need economic triggers,” said Councilman Jim Risner, suggesting instead that the town was capable enough of deciding on its own if and when a boundary adjustment was appropriate.

The reason, Risner and other council members explained, was that an area might meet the benchmark, but not necessarily generate enough revenue to cover the added services and liability the town might incur by taking in the new land.

Supervisor Sue Hansohn then asked exactly how much the town’s infrastructure was worth and how much the town expected in exchange for transferring the system to the authority.

No one had a firm answer to that on Thursday night, but Mayor Pranas Rimeikis said the information would be made available at the next meeting.

Risner asked town staff to make the info available ahead of the meeting, so that everyone would have an opportunity to study the data in detail.

The overall proposal —filled with benchmarks, dates, multimillion-dollar revenue gain/loss projections and three-letter acronyms — prompted some of the elected officials to comment that its complexity was already a bit out of hand.

That led County Administrator Frank Bossio to reiterate that the proposal needs to pass “the 7-Eleven test,” meaning a group of people in line at a store should be able to explain the idea to each other before they checked out.