LAMBERTVILLE: Council creates Municipal Utilities Authority

Lambertville Sewerage Authority is now Lambertville Municipal Utilities Authority, or LMUA

By Linda Seida, Staff Writer
   LAMBERTVILLE — For nearly an hour Monday, residents questioned the mayor, the sewerage authority’s executive director and the special counsel, trying to find out what it would mean to them if the authority were transformed into a municipal utilities authority.
   In essence, their curiosity boiled down to two main questions: Would the delivery of city services, mainly garbage pickup and recycling, change? And how much would it cost them?
   Not much is the answer to both questions, at least for now.
   Later could be a different story.
   Following the public hearing, the mayor and members of the City Council voted unanimously to transform the Lambertville Sewerage Authority by ordinance into the Lambertville Municipal Utilities Authority, or LMUA.
   ”The ordinance is kind of taxpayer neutral,” said LSA special counsel Brad Campbell, a former state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner. Changes in rates “would depend on decisions made down the road.”
   Mayor David Del Vecchio gave assurances the public would be given a voice via a referendum if or when the MUA were to consider taking over the job of trash and recyclables pickup from the city’s Public Works Department.
   Mr. Campbell assured residents that with an MUA in place, a rate change also would need input from the public, such as in a public hearing. And if it’s a rate change for a service provided previously by the city, such as garbage pickup, it would need two public airings, one with the city’s governing body and the other with the MUA.
   The change from LSA to LMUA “simply broadens the number of things a sewerage authority can do under state statutes,” Mr. Campbell said.
   For example, if desired, the LMUA could take over the running of Sparkle Week from the city. Sparkle Week, an annual event when the city would pick up at curbside any heavy items put out for disposal by residents, was canceled last year because of budget constraints.
   On a larger scale, the LMUA is going to look into sources of hydropower and solar power.
   The LMUA is not going to make any changes or take on more responsibilities at this time, according to officials.
   ”We’ll discuss and move into those things one at a time,” said LSA Executive Director James Meehan.
   ”Nothing really changes” with the ordinance, Mr. Campbell said. The ordinance allows an MUA to pursue options that the LSA was not permitted to pursue by state statute.