By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

NORTH SMITHFIELD — residents will get a final opportunity to comment on the town’s $21 million sewer construction project Monday as the Town Council seeks to decide the project’s future.

Council President David Lovett doesn’t expect that to be an easy task for the five-member panel given the concerns already raised about the project during earlier sessions on topic.
“We have to decide whether the project continues or not, that is the foremost thing before us,” Lovett said Friday.
Lovett said he anticipated a large turnout of residents when deciding to set the meeting for 6:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium and would be disappointed if the meeting is not well attended.
“I know a lot of people are interested in this issue and want to speak on it,” he said.
The project was divided into three major phases and first, known as Phase 1a and 1b, is largely complete. Repaving is already under way for the completed phase and the council will next have to determine what type of assessments property owners affected by the work will pay as their share of the project costs.
That decision would also be linked to whatever course of action the council sets on the remaining two phases of the project, a section of sewer construction from Pound Hill Road down Great Road to the St. Paul Street area under Phase II and a Phase III construction project taking sewer lines up Old Great Road and into the Harkness Road area.
Town Administrator Paulette Hamilton and a group of affected residents have voiced objections to construction of the final phases of the project in light of unanswered questions regarding the project’s connection costs.
Hamilton believes the council should enact a moratorium on further work until more accurate information on the costs can be obtained or new sources of supporting funds found.
Residents in areas where the highest connection costs are expected want the final phases of the work dropped altogether.
Lovett said he also is concerned about the potential costs for residents affected by the project and noted the downturn of the economy will also have an impact on the council’s deliberations.
The panel will have to decide whether it wants to award a bid for construction of the second phase of the project during the meeting and weigh information the sewer commission provided regarding the number of users it would actually affect at the same time, according to Lovett.
The project was originally projected as serving approximately 1,000 town properties when it was initially proposed but the council has learned the sewer commission is currently working with a projection of 880 as potential contributors to project assessments. That sum includes approximately 280 future multi-use units associated with a planned redevelopment of the Branch Village neighborhood.
The Branch Village mixed use units are just projections at the moment, according to Lovett, and as a result he does not believe they should be considered in judging the actual costs for existing users.
“In the best of times Branch Village would not be 100 percent built out for at least 10 years,” Lovett said. And with the downturn of the economy a 100-percent build out is no longer a realistic projection, he added.
The council could use a lower projection for affected users in determining the project assessments but that would also mean the assessments would be higher than initially proposed, he said.
What will be set as an assessment for properties in the first phase of the project is also a factor in the panel’s expected discussions since a move to cancel later phases would potentially increase the costs for properties already facing connection, according to Lovett.
The original projections for the sewer work listed an assessment of $21,000 spread over 20 years as the high end of the estimated costs with options for reducing it, but that figure may now be the starting point for determining the final assessment, Lovett said.
The panel may be able to find some savings by moving repaving costs associated with the project to a town-wide capital bond or seek federal stimulus funding to help out, but in the end the Council will still have several difficult decisions to make, Lovett said.
“There are a lot of things to consider. It’s very complex issue and there really aren’t any simple solutions at this point,” Lovett said.