SPLITTING THE BILL
Yaede administration reverses course on sewer rate study that could have resolved Robbinsville sewer debate >>
HAMILTON >> It’s the multimillion dollar question that Mayor Kelly Yaede apparently doesn’t want answered.
“Literally the milliondollar question,” township council president Jeff Martin, a Democrat running for mayor, said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Does Robbinsville owe the township $2.8 million for past sewer services, as suggested by the Yaede administration?
Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried has said that, with a $710,000 payment made in May, his municipality is current on its tab. Hamilton officials have threatened to sue Robbinsville to compel it pay but haven’t made good on the threat.
To resolve the controversy, the townships agreed to split $20,000 to $30,000 for a rate study to determine if Robbinsville paid its fair share for sewer services, administered by Hamilton Township, over the years, officials said.
The rate study would have settled, once and for all, whether Robbinsville was square with its neighbor or owed more money to cover what officials have said was its 15 percent of the sewer flow.
But in a sudden and unexpected about-face, business administrator Dave Kenny, Yaede’s trusted lieutenant, said at a meeting Tuesday night that the township mayor no longer supported the rate study.
In an interview, Yaede claimed she never favored the rate study, a position contradicted by members of her own administration, and other leaders who said that’s been her position all along.
The council president said Wednesday was the first time he was hearing Yaede opposed the rate study from the get-go.
Martin said Kenny repeatedly told him over the past few months that the administration was putting together a request for quotes for the rate study. He was incredulous over the mayor’s sudden denial.
“She’s lied before,” Martin said. “I think she realized she made a mistake, and she’s lying to not make herself looks so bad because she realized a rate study is the right thing to do.”
In a statement, Martin called Yaede’s “abrupt flipflop so confusing.”
Robbinsville has fervently fought Hamilton’s demands to pay more for sewer services, requesting an itemized bill, and filing a public records lawsuit to try to get ahold of documents to prove that it paid its balance off.
“The one thing I’m very good at is math, so I’m very comfortable in our budgeting,” Fried said. “It’s been very, very difficult to prove our position. They haven’t released the information. The attorneys have been talking. What I find humorous is they filed the same OPRA request, and we sent them the information in the required time.”
Fried double-dog dared the township to push forward with the rate study, extending an offer to Hamilton to pay all the costs for the study.
“We’re that confident we’re in the right,” Fried, a fellow Republican, said. “They now know that Robbinsville doesn’t owe them. This was nothing but an election-year gimmick, a fictional million dollars to lower taxes. Without the million dollars, they’re going to have a massive, massive deficient in their budget. Ratepayers will have to shoulder the burden.”
When asked whether he felt Yaede and Co. purposely tried to defraud his township, Fried said, “That’s a question for Angelo Onofri, not me. I think they never put the bills in the mail, maybe that they know those bills are not accurate.”
Onofri serves as Mercer County’s top prosecutor.
Fried said he “would make sure it wasn’t cloudy” if the Yaede told him the sky was blue, alluding to his distrust of Hamilton’s mayor.
Martin said he planned to meet with the township attorney Michael Balint in the coming days to see if the council can resurrect plans for a rate study. Without it, he said the township will continue to face the same dilemma each year.
“I think the mayor’s nervous that what she is touting publicly wouldn’t be the case if it got reviewed publicly,” he said. “I’ve never seen any documents that definitively lay out what Robbinsville owes and why.”
David Henderson, the GOP candidate who lost to Yaede in the primary, brought up the status of the rate study at Tuesday’s council meeting. During a tense exchange with Kenny, he offered to phone Fried to arrange for Robbinsville to foot the entire bill for the rate study.
Henderson said in an interview he believes that Hamilton’s numbers were intentionally “skewed.”
“I want to protect Hamilton. I want them to get their fair share, but only their fair,” the gadfly said. “I don’t want fake numbers, and voodoo math, orchestrated by the mayor’s brother-inlaw, Rich Mulrine, in order to make her look good for an election that’s coming up in two months. In my opinion, that’s why they pushed out [suspended chief financial officer] John Barrett, because he would not have been a party to voodoo numbers.”
Mayor responds
Yaede, in an interview with The Trentonian on Wednesday, said she has never supported an independent rate study.
“Jeff Martin made the irresponsible statement that he has to protect Robbinsville residents. I’ve been in this fight to protect Hamilton residents,” Yaede said. “On June 18, Mr. Martin was made aware of my view that a rate study is another stall tactic.”
Martin, meanwhile, said he did not recall and could not locate any correspondence from Yaede concerning her opposition to a rate study.
Yaede says a rate study “would have taken months and would have only served Robbinsville, not Hamilton,” adding that Robbinsville needs to pay its “fair share.”
“Robbinsville’s two-step on impacting Hamilton ratepayers by not paying their fair share is quickly coming to an end,” she said. “On eight different appointed times Robbinsville has been provided with rate calculations, and they will not be happy, for they don’t want to pay their fair share.”
Hamilton Township operates a regional wastewater treatment facility serving residents of Hamilton and Robbinsville. When residents of Hamilton and Robbinsville flush their toilets, the sewage travels through sewer lines and is ultimately treated at Hamilton’s Water Pollution Control plant before being discharged into Crosswicks Creek.
Hamilton Township has produced documentation showing Robbinsville owes a collective $2.8 million for 2018 and 2019 sewer service. Hamilton billed Robbinsville $2.78 million for 2019 sewer service, but Robbinsville only paid about $1 million of that bill, and Hamilton billed Robbinsville $2.84 million for 2018 sewer service, but Robbinsville only paid about $1.7 million of that bill, accord
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