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May 31, 2001 By Gail Binkly Two area builders threatened Tuesday night to initiate a recall of some Cortez Sanitation District board members if immediate changes are not made in management of the district. Don Etnier, developer of Sedona Estates, and Jim Kreutzer, developer of the Southern Bluffs Subdivision, said they had attended an informal meeting two weeks ago at which some 30 people complained about the district’s policies and practices, and had decided to seek a recall of three of the five board members if changes were not made. "None of these people felt you’re bad people," Etnier told the four members present at a special meeting Tuesday night. "Individually, you’re good people. But the way the situation is now, it’s not working." On Wednesday, attorney Erin Johnson confirmed that she had been retained by a citizens’ recall committee to mount a recall effort against Stan Pierce, Sam Jarvis and Jim Bridgewater. The other two board members, Bob Diederich and G.W. McCutcheon, were elected a year ago and have not been in office long enough to be recalled, she said. Johnson said she hoped to have petitions in circulation by next week. She said the signatures of either 300 registered voters, or 40 percent of the sanitation district’s registered voters, whichever is fewer, would need to be gathered to force a recall election. Etnier initially asked for Tuesday’s special meeting to be conducted in secret, saying it would involve sensitive matters. But the board said there was no legal justification to call an executive session. State law lists specific purposes, such as discussions of pending land purchases or personnel reviews, for which such sessions may be called by public boards. Kreutzer said he had encountered continual difficulties and delays in his dealings with the district and its manager, Bill Smith, while working on plans for his subdivision, which will consist of 245 lots on 100 acres south of Seventh Street. Smith was not present at the meeting. "There’s not one single person I’ve run across in 20 years that’s anything like Mr. Smith," Kreutzer said. "I just have never had such a hard time with anybody." He also questioned the district’s restrictions on sales of sewer taps at its southern plant, which the district says is nearing capacity. Cortez voters last May passed a measure to finance a new, $10 million sewer plant to replace the southern plant. "You guys have trailer parks here with raw sewage boiling over on the ground," Kreutzer said, questioning why he has difficulty buying sewer taps for his own project, which he said would provide badly needed affordable housing. While Kreutzer was planning Southern Bluffs in 1996 and 1997, he communicated frequently with the sanitation district and was never told that the southern plant might be running short of taps, he said. "In all these letters (from the district) since 1967 and ’97 was there even one hint, even in 1997, that we were short on taps?" he asked. He said as late as March 1999 there had been no indication of the upcoming shortage, "and all of a sudden in August there were no taps." Kreutzer questioned Smith’s figures about how many taps were available at the southern plant, saying engineers had told him there could be capacity for as many as 800 more taps. "I am being harmed personally, financially and mentally" by the delays, Kreutzer said. "I have a $5 million project I can’t move ground on." He said plans he had sent to the district for approval two weeks ago had not been stamped for 10 days. "Why does it take 10 days to do 15 minutes’ worth of work?" he asked. "It’s stalling." Pierce said delays in the development of Southern Bluffs were not all the fault of the sanitation district. "Why did the project sit for two years?" Pierce asked. "Was it our fault you haven’t been able to do anything since 1996?" Kreutzer agreed that he had not been ready to move forward with the subdivision then, but said the district had been holding the project up for the past couple of years since restrictions were placed on the number of new sewer taps that could be sold. Kreutzer also said many people were concerned about the sanitation district’s policy of severing and plugging the sewer lines of delinquent customers. There is a $500 fee to be reconnected, and a $4,000 fee if the line is cut twice during a five-year period. But Bridgewater said it isn’t effective to simply place liens on the homes of delinquent customers, as critics have suggested doing. He said the district had tried that in the past and there were homes that received sewer service for two years without paying, while the liens were ignored. "There are people out there that will buy your liens from you," Kreutzer suggested. But Pierce said the sanitation district isn’t in that sort of business. "We’re also not a welfare agency by any means," he added. "Nor is any public utility." Bridgewater said the city of Cortez should find a way to arrange to cut off city water to customers who haven’t paid their sewer bills. He said delinquent customers are a continual problem and there are 35 people on the current disconnection list "that want to be the next test case and get their name in the paper." But the board voted 4-0 at the end of its meeting to hold off any disconnections until after the sanitation district meets with city officials on June 19 to discuss a possible arrangement for cutting off water rather than sewer service. Bridgewater also said many of the complaints that Kreutzer and Etnier had about Smith were actually the result of policies that had been set by the board itself. "If there’s a bad policy, it should be changed," he said. He said he would not vote to dismiss Smith, nor would he resign as a board member. Pierce agreed and defended Smith’s record as a manager. "Bill’s a brilliant person," he said. "He knows what he’s doing. He’s done a heck of a good job. We’re in a better financial position than we ever have been before." Etnier and Kreutzer said they would be meeting with the recall committee tonight to discuss the board’s responses but planned to proceed with the recall. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at Koko’s and is open to the public. |
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