Council, school board mum about meeting over sewer bill

By Sherris Moreira-Byers
Herald Staff Writer

Members of West Middlesex Area School Board and West Middlesex council met Monday night but the meeting wasn’t publicized and those who attended aren’t talking about it.

Council President Helen Richardson said Jonathan Fister, the school board president, “asked us not to talk about that meeting.”

Mrs. Richardson said Fister sent her a letter a couple of weeks ago inviting members of council to meet with the school board to discuss an outstanding sewer bill.

The school district owes about $14,000 including penalties, said school board secretary Marge Burgoon.

But, Brenda Wagner, assistant borough secretary, said the figure is $17,000 including penalties. In December 1998, the borough raised the school’s rate per unit to $22.40 from $17.40. That raised the monthly bill for three buildings about 29 percent to $3,360 from $2,610.

At the time, the school board questioned how the sewer bill was calculated. Then in January 1999, the board began paying only half of the bill, according to Marge Burgoon, board secretary. Council Vice President Robert Lucich countered Mrs. Richardson’s claim that the meeting was requested two weeks ago. He said he overheard a discussion about the meeting at council’s March 20 meeting and invited himself to it. But, he said, he told other council members he was concerned that it wasn’t being advertised.

“This is public money and public information,” Lucich said. “I was going to attend, but I didn’t like the under-handed way it seemed like it was being handled.” Lucich said he did not attend the meeting.

The school board’s Fister claimed the unadvertised meeting was “an executive session meeting, held during a regularly scheduled properties committee meeting, which was advertised.”

Seven of nine school board members attended, Fister said, and they were aware that an executive session was going to be held with borough council. Three council members attended, Lucich said. Neither group’s solicitor attended, though Fister said the school board had discussed the meeting with its solicitor, Thomas Breth of Butler.

Even if the meeting was a legal one, Lucich said he remains concerned about what he called a “gag order” from Fister.

“Why are we being so hush-hush about taxpayers’ money? Mr. Fister owes the general public an explanation,” Lucich said.

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