By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

NORTH SMITHFIELD — A group of residents opposing the town’s $21 million sewer expansion project ended a lengthy meeting of the Town Council with cheers and applause Monday night as the panel put the project on hold under a surprise 3-2 vote.

The move, introduced by Councilman Paul Leclerc and supported by members Paul Zwolenski and Steve Biron, rejected a sewer commission request to award a construction bid for the project’s second phase and also called for a new study of the town’s sewer needs.
The action came despite concern raised by town officials that a delay in awarding the second phase of the three-phase sewer bond project could result in the town losing $1.2 million in federal stimulus funding reserved for the work.
Project opponents raised pointed criticism of the sewer commission for its management of project planning and implementation during the meeting and also objected strongly to being assessed for project costs in the current economy.
Others in the group indicated they understood the need for expanding sewers to areas of the town with failing septic systems, but suggested a better plan to meet those needs could be created with further study.
Leclerc said he still had many questions over the next two phases of the project local voters had approved in 2007 and believed a need analysis could help resolve them.
He also pointed to “a lack of federal funding, a lack of state funding, and a lack of local funding,” and features such as low-pressure pumping systems for individual homes as making the project too costly for the residents it was intended to serve.
Pointing to the “poor timing” of the work, Leclerc said the economy has yet to “bottom out” in the ongoing downturn and that forecast combined with an increase in local taxes for the just approved town budget would prove too heavy a burden for residents.
The information presented by the attending residents also made a strong argument for a delay, he said. “I can’t support this whatsoever,” Leclerc said while indicating he would not vote for the award of the Phase II contract.
Leclerc and Zwolenski had voiced concern about the continuation of the project at earlier council meetings and in fact voted against the payment of design and engineering bills for Phase II and III at the beginning of the meeting under the council’s 3-2 votes approving the expenditures.
Council President David A. Lovett had voted in favor of payment of the bills along with Councilman Lucien Benoit and Biron and told residents he would also offer a modification of the sewer expansion plan later in the session.
The opposition group, Right Sewers Inc., followed with a presentation by Robert Thurber and Maryellen Sheridan showing their concern that continuation of the project into Phase II and III would result in a final assessment cost of between $20,000 to $27,749 based on costs projections they had obtained from the town.
The only way to avoid the escalation of the project costs would be to stop the project at the work already completed under Phase I, they argued.
Sewer Commission Chairwoman Linda Jean Briggs refuted the group’s contentions in response and maintained they had been based on inaccurate projections taken from the earlier stages of the project’s planning.

The actual costs coming in for the Phase Ia and Phase Ib construction projects and the final bid for Phase II were all lower than earlier projections as a result of the downturn in the economy and the competitive bidding environment that has resulted, according to Briggs.
The $1.2 million savings over the projected costs combined with the available stimulus funding and an already discussed council plan to put road repaving costs into a townwide bond, would result in significantly lower total project costs, Briggs argued.
But the opponents, several interrupting Briggs during her remarks, remained unswayed.
Roger Bernier of Branch Village, who would see his home connected to sewers under Phase II, said recent sewer work near his neighborhood has eliminated flooding problems of the past and he no longer experiences septic overflows at his property. “I don’t need a new sewer system on Branch Avenue,” he said.
Jeanette Riendeau, also a resident of the neighborhood, took offense with comments from town officials that sewer system improvements were a benefit to the town as a whole during her turn at the microphone.
“If it is a benefit to the whole town, why isn’t everyone in the town paying for it,” she said.
Diane Wojcik of Lincoln Drive told the council she has tried to make sense of the sewer project over the past 10 months but still had worries over its cost.
Based on the information she had been able to collect, Wojcik projected that an assessment of $20,484 for her share of the project’s assessment would require her to set aside a total of $115.62 each month over 20 years at an interest rate of 3 percent.
When all of the related expenses such as sewer use charges and connection costs were combined, Wojcik estimated she and her husband, John, would need to set aside $350 each month in income to pay them.
“In this economy this sewer project is unreasonable and unaffordable,” she said.
Another opponent, Carol Nasuti, warned that the town could ultimately end up paying the costs of users estimated to result from new development in the Phase II if that new development never actually occurs.
The figures of 280 project users from the Branch Village redevelopment plan included in the overall estimate of 880 users for the total project have been a point of contention between the Sewer Commission and the opponents.
Nasuti said she did not believe the 280 projected users would ever “fully exist” as part of the project and therefore should not be counted as a sharing in its costs.
Lovett agreed with that view while offering his own projection of 410 project users for a modified construction plan limiting the work to Phase I and Phase II for now.
Moving forward with Phase II would allow the town to secure the $1.2 million in stimulus funding as a way to lower the project cost overall, according to Lovett.
His proposal would also allow residents a total of 5 years to tie-in. That option would require the town to forego a $500,000 interceptor grant from the state due to its one-year tie-in requirement but would allow residents more time to plan for their connections costs, Lovett noted.
Even with a reduced number of users, Lovett said his plan would lower the overall assessment for the resident from the $21,000 originally discussed in the project’s planning to his own projection of $14,539.
After bonding for 20 years at an interest rate of 3.5 percent, Lovett said residents affected by the project could expect their assessment to cost approximately $1,011 a year or $84.32 a month.
The plan would require the town as a whole to bond the expected $2.8 million cost of road resurfacing resulting from the project and the town would need approximately $200,000 annually from revenue to cover the bond costs, he projected.
While some of the residents in the audience such as Tony Cesana, suggested the revised plan might be a workable one, others continued to advocate for a complete shutdown of the project.
Biron joined Benoit in arguing that residents might ultimately pay higher costs for replacing failed septic systems if sewers were not constructed, but later joined Leclerc and Zwolenski in voting for the delay after hearing Leclerc explain his motion would not stop the project completely but instead take time to further study its best implementation.
After the vote approving that step, Leclerc said he was surprised to have won passage of his recommendation but said he believed it would allow the time needed to determine the best next step.
“Mr. Lovett and I are not that far off in our proposals and I think we need to look at the numbers that are going to work,” he said.