03/20/1967 - Laserfiche WebLink

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REPORT ON INITIATION OF SLYER ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO 2 - By Mayor A T Henley This excerpt is attached to the official Minutes of the City Council of March 20, 1967. The rumor is that Assessment District No. 2 began with a decision of the Council that sewers were a good idea, that we then adopted a resolution (No. 365) asking the Health Department to back up this idea. I'm afraid the underlying intention of these statements is to cause fear; to persuade people that the Council in irresponsibly bent on sewering the whole Town whether necessary or not. The rumor is false and the fear is groundless. What happened in fact is this: In August of 1965, a preliminary map for a subdivision came up to the Council from the Planning Commission. You°11 recall that, at that tine, the Council consisted of Aiken, Bowler, Clayton, Fowls and Henley. The subdivision was titled Corbetta Unit No. 2. Later on the same Agenda was a neighboring parcel - Silent Hills (Lehner). The two are in the same drainage basin. The approval of the Planning Commission ~, as is usual, conditioned on the approval of the cognizant agencies. Now the Corbett& file contained a letter from one of those agencies, namely Lthe County Health Department, ex officio the Health Department of this City. The letter was dated July 19, 1965; it contained certain findings, and on basis thereof, a recommendation that the subdivision have sanitary sewers, The letter was signed by Peter J. Nardini for the Chief Sanitarian. In addition to the letter, Mr. Nardini and Mr. E. Pearl were both present and gave the reasons for the department's action, among theme, the new tough view being taken by the Regional Water Pollution Control Board, relative to standards of public health. The same situation obtained for the Lehner tract. Faced with the highly unequivocal stand of these legally constituted agencies the Council, after lengthy discussion, took two actions. They are generally as follows: The first was a statement of Council intention that the drainage basin in question is to be severed. This pulled in Eshner as well as Corbetta. The motion was by Fowls and was unanimously adopted. The second was a statement of Town policy to "quire connections to sewer outfalls wherever feasible. The motion was by Aiken and unanimously adopted. What happened then? We sought advice as to how to go about getting that basin severed and we were told that assemmment proceedings would be required. What are the legal steps to that end? The first one is to get a formal state- ment of the Health Department that they are needed. The Attorney proceeded to draft a resolution for that purpose and we adopted it. That's the famous l_II resolution which initiated the legal steps in forming Assessment District No. 2, but it was itself preceded by Health Department demands.