Lifelong Suttons Bay village resident Emma Jean Nelson said she's upset and worried now that her village water and sewer bill will be higher than the bills she receives to light and heat her home on St. Mary's Avenue.

Nelson and her husband, Melvin, are both retired and on fixed incomes. An extra $43.66 per month on their water and sewer bill could put them over the edge, she said.

“This is hard on working people and even harder for those of us who don’t work,” Nelson told the Village Council and a crowd of about 50 village utility customers who attended a special meeting Tuesday evening at the Suttons Bay-Bingham fire hall to discuss a proposed fee increase for 2008.

“My husband and I decided to stay here in Suttons Bay because it was a decent town,” Nelson said. “Now, it’s a thousand dollar town with ten cent jobs,” she said. “It’s hard.”

According to village president Larry Mawby, the fee increase is required to help pay off the cost of constructing a new wastewater treatment system that went online last year. A requirement to add “depreciation” of the system into the village budget – as well as the effect of far fewer users and payers on the system than it was designed for – are primarily responsible for the steep fee increases, he explained.

Tuesday night’s meeting was held to hear complaints from citizens (there were plenty) as well as suggestions from citizens on how to mitigate the problem (there were few).

Mawby said that a number of suggestions presented to the Village Council by citizens appeared to be thoughtful although in some cases “illegal.”

Notably, suggestions that general fund revenues derived from a millage should be used to pay off the debt on the wastewater system are not in keeping with state law, Mawby said. A 20-year bond being used to finance the system must be paid off through user fees, he said, although he added that a village attorney would be asked to look into whether other funding avenues might be available.

Several of those offering public comment at the meeting cited the effect of the massive BayView development on the water and sewer system. Although more than 500 new users and payers were expected to be added to the system within several years at BayView, only a few dozen have actually materialized so far.

“The developer of BayView, Marcus Yono, has no legal obligation whatsoever to pay any more for the water and sewer system,” Mawby said. “The $2.2 million he prepaid for 553 taps into the system was $2.2 million more than we would have otherwise received for the system and would otherwise have needed to finance. We’re actually better off financially now than we would have been had BayView never come along,” Mawby said.

The village president added, however, that the developer would be encouraged to live up to his obligation to provide lots for an “affordable housing” program in the second through fourth phases of the BayView project – possibly adding users to the wastewater treatment system faster than they might otherwise be added.

In addition, village officials may look into encouraging users to be added to the system just outside the village limits in Suttons Bay Township.

A group of residents from the Port Sutton condominium community drafted a letter read aloud at Tuesday’s meeting by resident Tom Steffe. The letter faulted both the village government and the BayView developer for overestimating how many new units would be added to the sewer and water system, and how quickly.

“We believe that the village council of Suttons Bay as well as Mr. Yono’s developments bear significant responsibility and accountability for their actions in this matter,” according to the letter. “We are concerned that these parties have not come forth with a plan to subsidize the additional costs burdens. The pain needs to be shared more broadly.”

Mawby acknowledged that estimates of how many users would be added to the system in the short term – and an earlier “rate structure” analysis provided by a village consultant – were off substantially. But, he added, the cost of the system would inevitably need to be borne by existing users of the system.

The Village Council also heard from the biggest single user of the system, Suttons Bay Public Schools, in a letter from superintendent Mike Murray. The school district will need to come up with an additional $11,763 over its budget next year to pay for village water and sewer service.

Murray wrote: “My thought was, ‘That translates to a whole new set of math textbooks.’ Then I stopped to think about the charges. I realized that there are many others in the village struggling to get by who also haven’t budgeted for this increase. If we tried to figure out some way out of paying this increase, that burden would fall on the shoulders of the other residents of the village.

“We are an important part of this community, and we need to shoulder our fair share,” Murray wrote. “That is exactly what we intend to do, without complaining.”

The superintendent noted that he was expressing his personal view, not those of the Board of Education. He praised the Village Council for coping as well as they could with a difficult situation said he appreciated their “fiscal responsibility.”