Barre Water Commission eyes engineering contract extension ahead of June deadline

BARRE — May 8, 2017 — Barre Water Commission weighs engineering contract extensions and whether to bill town buildings for water use. At the May 8 meeting, the commission's director, identified as Jason, recommended retaining three on-call engineering firms — Lenard, Catering Howard, and Chapel Engineering — while dropping Western and Sampson from consideration when current three-year contracts expire June 30, 2017; he said he was awaiting guidance from the inspector general's office on whether extensions are permissible without a new solicitation. The director also argued that the town's buildings, including the fire and police stations, schools, and library, should be billed for water and sewer use, saying the current arrangement passes those costs unfairly onto residential ratepayers: "Those department budgets look so much lower because they're not being charged for that stuff." A separate dispute over a $918 Coin Chemicals invoice from fiscal year 2016 was described as resolved through a direct call to the vendor, though the episode exposed a recurring breakdown in communication between the water department and the town administrator's office. A public hearing on an approved water and sewer rate increase is set for May 22.