Published: December 02, 2008 01:47 pm      

Jeffersonville seizes sewer plant

Move ends months of maneuvering between city, contractor EMC

Jeffersonville took control of its sewer plant Monday morning, locking out contractor Environmental Management Co., commonly known as EMC, which has long administered the plant.

“It’s our plant — they don’t have any right to our plant,” said Jeffersonville Mayor Tom Galligan.

Monday’s move was a latest in a months-long series of maneuvering between the city and the company.

“There was no notice and it was pretty heavy-handed,” said Greg Fifer, an attorney representing the company locally.

A hearing — at which the company will try to convince a judge to allow workers back in the plant — is scheduled for 1 p.m. today. However, the hearing could be pushed back until Wednesday.

Galligan said the city has been unhappy with the level of service EMC was providing at the plant. The company didn’t have enough employees and regular maintenance of the system was not taking place, he said.

The Jeffersonville Sanitary Sewer Board decided during a closed-door executive session in November that it would take over control of the plant, Galligan said. EMC was not notified of the city’s intent to do so.

Galligan said that city officials had been patient in trying to work with the company. However, the city is facing additional pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up sewer overflow problems.

EMC is operating on a contract signed in 2004, which was not scheduled to end until 2010.

City officials first began talking about taking over the sewer plant earlier this year when new positions were added to the city’s salary ordinance. Those changes were made so that the city could have spots on the ordinance to put sewer workers on the city’s payroll.

A lawsuit was filed in August, in which EMC claimed that the city did not have the right to unilaterally terminate the contract.

Fifer noted that the two parties went to mediation in the last few months, but the case was never settled. He said that there was an injunction filed in August that requires the city to maintain the status quo.

“I don’t see any basis for what the city has done at this time,” he said.

At a Monday night meeting, the Jeffersonville City Council approved an update to the salary ordinance that clarified sewer job titles and set salaries for those positions.

In all, the move adds 21 employees to the city’s payroll — 12 of them are former EMC workers and nine are new hires.

In other business

• The council approved an update to the fiscal plan associated with last year’s annexation of more than 7,806 acres of land and an estimated 3,360 households north and east of the old city limits.

The update adds more than $6.5 million in costs to the annexation, explained attorney Larry Wilder, who drafted the update. It includes such costs as paying for the city’s new growth coordinator, a new deputy in the Jeffersonville Clerk-Treasurer’s office and a new city court clerk, among many other items.

Wilder noted that the update is necessary as the city applies for what’s known as a maximum-levy appeal.

The appeal is essentially a requested increase in property tax dollars in order to cover the cost of administering new annexation services.