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Commission approves Chelsea utilities corporation

by

Erica Techo

The Shelby County Commission agreed during its first meeting of October that a Governmental Utilities Services Corporation, or GUSC, be allowed to operate in portions of unincorporated Shelby County.

The Chelsea City Council previously voted to establish the GUSC about a month ago, at a Sept. 7 specially called meeting, and the matter was set to come before the Commission in late September. However, the agenda item was held over due to documents not being ready at the time.

The GUSC’s aim is to “oversee and control rate increases” for residents whose sewer service is provided by Double Oak Water Reclamation. It will operate within Chelsea city limits as well as parts of unincorporated Shelby County, as some Double Oak Water Reclamation customers live outside the city.

Chelsea residents had signed a petition in July 2016 asking the Commission to help battle sewer rates that were increasing year after year. Resident Connie Gilliland also brought the matter before visiting representatives last October, and in January, Chelsea Mayor Tony Picklesimer announced a short-term solution — customers would not see a rate increase in 2017.

At the Oct. 9 Commission meeting, County Manager Alex Dudchock said the resolution predominantly dealt with right-of-ways and board appointments.

“This GUSC will have jurisdiction dealing with sewer rates that are on the Double Oak Water Reclamation Sewer system presently. They are in the process of doing a sale. They are a private sewer system, held privately, and there is coverage not only in the city limits of Chelsea, but also unincorporated, and there are also a few in Pelham city limits on the County Road 11 run,” Dudchock said.

The GUSC will comply with terms in agreements regarding the installation of sanitary sewer facilities on county rights-of-way, according to the resolution, and one member on the GUSC’s board of directors will be the “Shelby County Representative” and must be a resident of Chelsea.

“It also requires that the GUSC continue to comply with the specified resolution of the County Commission, which sets a uniform process and procedure for using the county rights of way,” said County Attorney Butch Ellis.

While there had been discussions to require GUSCs to be responsible for projects that are county projects operating on rights-of-way other than county rights-of-way, Ellis said it was not included in the resolution because “it’s not a good fit.”

“We did some negotiation on that, we were not successful, and I can’t criticize that much because it was not a good fit,” Ellis said. “We were basically just approving the GUSC was operating where the DOWR [Double Oak Water Reclamation] was operating.”

Dudchock also noted that previously, there was no public entity for the treatment of waste water, and DOWR was created by private individuals. They made land available to be developed as residential and commercial sites, and they do not compete with other entities in the area.

Ellis also said that DOWR was “highly sought after” by Chelsea because they did not have a chance to get a sewer system through a public system for development.

The city of Chelsea is set to have further discussion on the GUSC at upcoming meetings, Dudchock said.

Other Commission business included:

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