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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSt. Bens Sewer Agreement Sarah Bialke From:Judy Weyrens Sent:Thursday, April 07, 2011 2:55 PM To:Rick Schultz; Wick, Dale; Steve Frank; Renee Symanietz; bloso@qmail.com Cc:Sarah Bialke Subject:FW: St Ben's/St Joe Sewer Agreement Please see below, Tom might have some comments tonight as he will be at the meeting. -----Original Message----- From: Thomas G. Jovanovich [mailto:TJovanovich@rajhan.com] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 2:49 PM To: John Greer Cc: bobloso@q.com; Judy Weyrens; Randy Sabart; Terry Thene; Lori Bartlett; Brenda A. Wolbeck Subject: RE: St Ben's/St Joe Sewer Agreement John, This email is in reply to your objection to the 2010 sewer bill to St Ben's. In your March 7 email to me about the bill and proposed sewer agreement you stated "We certainly did not anticipate a bill of $257,000, which includes charges for St. Cloud debt costs of $111,000." In a later email dated March 31 you stated "St. Ben's wants to pay the invoice for last year's services, but we do not believe it should include charges for St. Cloud improvements." In your email to me on April 6 you stated "At our last meeting we reached an agreement that the City would pay St. Bens and St. Bens would accept a payment of $16,534 to resolve the adjustments issue for past years payments. That provision is stated in Article IV Section C. on page 6. However St. Ben's agreed to that provision in part because St. Joe also agreed to acknowledge, as part of the same discussion, that St. Bens had paid for all of its current capacity in the St. Cloud System." I don't believe that the reasons that you have provided for non-payment of the $111,000 have any merit. First the invoice sent to St. Benedict included a cover letter, invoice and 10 pages of detail. On the 10th page of detail the amount the City paid to the City of St. Cloud was detailed. The City paid St. Cloud a total of $ 247,949.06 (column asterisked). Of that total only $ 6,340.90 was for payment towards the Wastewater Plant Rehabilitation or Expansion. The majority of the cost was for repairs to the interceptors that St. Joseph utilizes. These fees are not tied to the amount of capacity allowed, purchased or available. It is strictly for repairs to the delivery system with no correlation to the expansion or rehab. In addition, all citizens are required to pay for the expansion and rehab costs even though they have paid for their current capacity. Second, the City agreed to credit St. Benedict for billing errors or corrections. Again, this has nothing to do with the amount of capacity allowed, purchased or available. The credit is a result of an adjustment to depreciation, crediting back charges that should not have been charged, credit for admin fees for 2005 and 2006 that appeared to be billed twice, credit for payment to the sinking fund while depreciation was charged, and credit for some equipment replacement. See Exhibit C to the draft Sewer Agreement which details the basis for the credit. Third, the City agreed upon execution of the agreement that St. Benedict had paid for its current capacity and they would be billed under the 1986 agreement. The adjustment would only be on the percentage they were charged. After the adjusted bill St. Benedict would be billed as all other users without consideration as to the capacity used. I will be discussing this matter with the City Council tonight. 1 Tom Jovanovich Rajkowski Hansmeier Ltd. 320-251-1055 tjovanovich@rajhan.com *********************Internet E-Mail Confidentiality Statement******************** Information contained in this e-mail transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named above and is privileged and confidential. If you are not the addressee, or the person responsible for delivering it to the addressee, you are hereby notified that any reading or dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication or any of its contents is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and immediately delete the original message and any copy of it. Thank you. IF THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE CONTAINS ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS, PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: These files and documents are legal documents that have been prepared by Rajkowski Hansmeier Ltd. as drafts or final executable versions of the documents. These files and documents should only be printed for further review or execution as instructed. Any alteration, modification, addition, deletion or other changes to these documents may result in changes to the legal effect of these documents and the rights and remedies of parties involved. ACCORDINGLY, YOU ARE ADVISED NOT TO CHANGE THE TEXT OR FORMAT OF ANY OF THE ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS UNLESS SUCH CHANGES ARE REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY YOUR LAWYER. RAJKOWSKI HANSMEIER LTD. HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOR ANY CHANGES OR MODIFICATIONS MADE BY YOU TO THE ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS. -----Original Message----- From: John Greer [mailto:jgreer@hughesmathews.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 3:24 PM To: Thomas G. Jovanovich Subject: RE: St Ben's/St Joe Sewer Agreement Tom, I will look at the revised draft and discuss it with my clients. I continue to disagree with the City's recent invoice, for the reasons previously stated. Please refer to Article IV, Sections C. and D. on page 6 of the draft. At our last meeting we reached an agreement that the City would pay St. Bens and St. Bens would accept a payment of $16,534 to resolve the adjustments issue for past years payments. That provision is stated in Article IV Section C. on page 6. However St. Ben's agreed to that provision in part because St. Joe also agreed to acknowledge, as part of the same discussion, that St. Bens had paid for all of its current capacity in the St. Cloud System. That provision is stated in Article IV Section D. on page 6. I disagree with your position, and that of the City, that the phrase "continue to be billed under the past billing practices, charged 45% of all applicable expenses..." in Section F. Billing Transitions on page 4, should be interpreted to mean that charges for St. Cloud improvements would be included. If that was the expectation of the City, then we did not have a meeting of the minds, and we still have work to do. John John L. Greer Hughes Mathews, P.A. 320.251.4399 -----Original Message----- From: Thomas G. Jovanovich [mailto:TJovanovich@rajhan.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 2:38 PM To: John Greer 2 Cc: Judy Weyrens; Randy Sabart; Terry Thene; Lori Bartlett Subject: St Ben's/St Joe Sewer Agreement John, Attached please find a letter from me discussing the Sewer Agreement and the 2010 bill for sewer services to St Ben's. Also attached is a word version of the Agreement which has accepted the changes you made in February and with some changes to the sentence on the ability of the Council to amend Ord 43 in the future. Please review and give me a call so we can move forward on this. Tom Jovanovich Rajkowski Hansmeier Ltd. 320-251-1055 tjovanovich@rajhan.com *********************Internet E-Mail Confidentiality Statement******************** Information contained in this e-mail transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named above and is privileged and confidential. If you are not the addressee, or the person responsible for delivering it to the addressee, you are hereby notified that any reading or dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication or any of its contents is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and immediately delete the original message and any copy of it. Thank you. IF THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE CONTAINS ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS, PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: These files and documents are legal documents that have been prepared by Rajkowski Hansmeier Ltd. as drafts or final executable versions of the documents. These files and documents should only be printed for further review or execution as instructed. Any alteration, modification, addition, deletion or other changes to these documents may result in changes to the legal effect of these documents and the rights and remedies of parties involved. ACCORDINGLY, YOU ARE ADVISED NOT TO CHANGE THE TEXT OR FORMAT OF ANY OF THE ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS UNLESS SUCH CHANGES ARE REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY YOUR LAWYER. RAJKOWSKI HANSMEIER LTD. HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOR ANY CHANGES OR MODIFICATIONS MADE BY YOU TO THE ATTACHED FILES AND DOCUMENTS. 3