Hearing on deliquent tap-in fees produces results
BULLSKIN TWP. – The majority of customers with delinquent tap-in fees owed to the Bullskin Township/Connellsville Township Joint Sewerage Authority agreed to make some form of payment arrangements before next month following a series of 29 civil hearings earlier this week before district justices Ronald Haggerty of Connellsville and Robert Breakiron of Bullskin Township. John Cupp, authority solicitor, said the Dec. 7 hearings resulted in several cases being continued until January for a lack of service, while other customers paid the $1,200 tap-in fee.
Aside from those customers, Cupp said the magistrates levied fines and restitution fees against three people that would continue to be imposed until next month’s deadline.
If they still refrain from paying, Cupp said, the authority would file a petition at the next hearing for their incarceration.
Several other customers who failed to appear were reported as deceased.
“More than half of the people showed up and made some arrangements that they would comply and pay the cost of prosecution. …We had no adverse decisions against (the authority) and had no-one that I thought would give us a continued problem,” said Cupp.
Overall, Cupp said he was not surprised with the outcome of the hearings with the exception of six people who never signed for the final hearing notice that was sent by certified mail by Carl Lewis, authority executive director.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than the fact that the person wasn’t there to pick up their mail,” Cupp said.
Lewis said the hearings went better than he expected as far as the number of people who attended.
The authority established the $1,200 tap-in fee last year in accordance with the completion of the first phase of a $5.52 million sewerage project that provided public sewerage to 400 customers in parts of both townships.
Customers were also afforded the option to reduce the fee by $200 if they paid within the first 60 days or by $100 within the first 120 days. Otherwise, they would have to pay the full price upon the project’s completion.
Aside from the tap-in fee, Lewis said customers were also responsible for another $800 to $1,000 needed for them to tap into the authority’s lateral line.
Once completed, the project included 76,000 feet of sewer line and three pump stations that supplied sewerage to the areas of Poplar Grove in Connellsville Township, Merit Manor, the Route 119 corridor and in Pennsville in Bullskin Township.
The authority was able to extend the sewerage line in that phase to part of Johnson Lane in Connellsville Township and Connellsville Street in Bullskin Township with $115,000 savings in change orders.
Funding for the project’s first phase was issued through loans of $350,000 and $1.5 million from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST) and a $2.5 million grant secured through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Although the authority started the application for the project’s second phase, funding could take up to 10 years since it would be on a waiting list with the Rural Utility Service.
The final phase would include those customers omitted from the first phase in the areas of the Route 119 corridor, East End Road, Route 982 to Pleasant Valley Country Club and part of Bellview Road.