LAKE STEVENS – The City Council and sewer district will sign an agreement today, turning over sewer operations to the district.
The change will save the city about $80,000 per year, but will cost two public works employees their jobs.
The move will eliminate duplication of services and make sewer business a one-stop operation, said Rick Lewellen, the district’s deputy manager for operations.
Until Jan. 1, the city will continue to provide customer service for sewer customers, who can stop by City Hall to pay sewer bills or ask questions, Mayor Lynn Walty said. After that the district will take over, but bills will remain the same.
People seeking new connections to the sewer system, however, will go to the district rather than the city.
“We feel the community would be best served if one entity could maintain and operate it,” Lewellen said.
Twenty years or more later, when the city has annexed its urban growth area, the system could be turned back over to the city, officials said.
Right now, city sewer lines collect all sewage within city limits and pump it to the sewer district. The district then pumps it to the treatment plant on Sunnyside Boulevard. The city pays a portion of that second pumping, as well as a portion of the treatment plant’s operation cost, through customer charges.
Lewellen said a sewer utility committee has spent about five years drafting the agreement.
City officials now can focus on other issues, such as annexations, storm water runoff and street improvements, Walty said.
“It’s something that I’ve been working on for years,” he said. “I thought it should have been done years ago, but it wasn’t.”
The public meeting is set for 7 p.m. Monday at 1808 Main St.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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