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Inn fees re-ignite Culpeper feud

Tap fees for inn re-ignites water-sewer war in Culpeper

BY DONNIE JOHNSTON

Date published: 11/20/2008

BY DONNIE JOHNSTON

The construction of an inn has become the latest battleground in the decade-long water-sewer war between Culpeper County and the Town of Culpeper.

According to County Administrator Frank Bossio and Supervisor Tom Underwood, the town plans to charge the county about $650,000 in tap fees for a 98-room Hampton Inn being built just outside the town limits.

That is about 10 times what the town charged the 88-room Holiday Inn Express, which is now being completed inside the town limits.

At odds is the interpretation of a 2003 Water-Sewer Agreement between the two localities, which permits the county to be a town customer with rights to resell what it buys. Under that deal, the county paid the town $3.3 million earlier this year for the rights to "up to 3,120 water and sewer taps or 600,000 gallons per day" of water and wastewater capacity.

While county officials stressed in meetings prior to the agreement that they wanted the utilities to serve commercial and industrial customers, Bossio and Underwood say the town is charging tap fees based on residential, not commercial, use.

"There is a difference of opinion as to how this [agreement] is to be administered," Bossio said.

While he acknowledged that residential rates are not specifically mentioned in the agreement, Mayor Pranas Rimeikis argued that that's what the deal boils down to.

"When the county purchased those taps, it was according to the residency equivalency charge," Rimeikis said, adding that the town figures residential and commercial water flow differently.

The county's purchase was based on 192.3 gallons a day, which the mayor admitted might be a little excessive for residential consumption.

demanding a lower rate

Bossio was tight-lipped this week because of the possibility that the issue might end up in litigation, but Underwood was outspoken.

"The purpose of this agreement was to provide water and sewer to businesses that want to locate in the county," Underwood said.

He added that the problem first came to light when the town required Teremark, the international Internet routing company that opened in June, to buy seven residential taps when one commercial tap would have sufficed.

Underwood believes Teremark wound up paying three times what it should have.

"That shouldn't have happened," Underwood said. "This problem should have been addressed then."

The Hampton Inn site, just north of Lover's Lane, would become part of the town if a proposed town-county boundary adjustment plan is finalized. In exchange, the town would put its water and sewer infrastructure into a regional authority that would serve the county environs. But that's only if there is still a boundary. Uncertainties that arose when the town provided water to Eastern View High School two years ago prompted Culpeper entrepreneur Joe Daniel to seek consolidation of the town and county governments. A plan for that consolidation must be offered to the courts by the middle of January. Meanwhile, county Supervisor Tom Underwood says there are rumors of a "hostile annexation" floating around. Town Mayor Pranas Rimeikis says he knows nothing of such a plan.

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Date published: 11/20/2008