The Guilderland Town Board is backpedaling on a plan to establish a special taxing district in McKownville in a favor of a townwide fund aimed at fixing drainage issues across the board.
Residents of the hamlet notorious for its drainage issues had petitioned for the establishment of a taxing district, but a public hearing on the matter scheduled for a Tuesday, May 7, Town Board meeting ended up being a moot point. Supervisor Ken Runion decided levying the new tax would be unfair because the town must tackle drainage issues throughout Guilderland.
Runion argued cuts in the town budget and increased sales tax revenues have helped fill town coffers, making infrastructure projects feasible.
“We have been doing a pretty good job finically here,” Runion said Friday, May 10. “Rather than create a storm drainage district for McKownville alone, we created a new line in the highway budget for stormwater improvements and repairs.”
The budget line approved by the Town Board will be $100,000 annually, with plans to grow the account each year through unspent funds to eventually help tackle a larger project, according to Runion. The town would have collected around $50,000 annually from residents of McKownville for projects in that hamlet through the proposed drainage district.
Runion pointed to a number of drainage issues across the town.
“We have townwide issues — McKownville is not an isolated area,” Runion said. “It would be unfair in my estimation to make them pay for their own and then have the town pay for all the other ones. It is either you do all of these drainage districts or you create a fund. … I felt the best thing to do was create this fund.”
Shortly before the board’s Tuesday meeting, robo-calls were made by the Guilderland Republican Committee urging hamlet residents to oppose the “drainage tax” at that night’s public hearing.
“The tax was unnecessary and it didn’t solve a problem and it should be opposed,” Matthew Nelligan, chairman of the town Republican Committee, said.
Nelligan, who lives in McKownville, agreed repairs should be made to address drainage issues in the neighborhood, but disagreed with the approach to levy a new tax on hamlet residents.
Don Reeb, president of the McKownville Improvement Association, previously said more than 400 of the hamlet’s 600 residents signed a petition asking for the drainage district. Of the people reached, Reeb had estimated around 25 people expressed opposition.
Nelligan claims when Reeb had visited his home he had pitched the idea to his wife, but didn’t make it clear the petition aimed to levy a new tax. Once Nelligan read the petition and realized what was being proposed he opted to not sign it.
“It is completely false to say the McKownville residents wanted to tax themselves,” Nelligan said.
Reeb could not be reached for comment before The Spotlight went to press.
Nelligan claimed if the town raised $50,000 annually through the district it would take 124 years to complete repairs outlined under the town’s plan.
A Delaware Engineering report estimated completing all needed repairs across four target areas would cost $6.7 million. The town also has $500,000 available for McKownville projects through a member item from Sen. Neil Breslin.
The plan chiefly involved creating new catch basins, adding residential sump pump connections and methods to redirect stormwater to several downstream detention basins. Some streets would also be milled to lower its elevation to improve drainage.
The drainage district designation was also said to allow the town to apply for additional federal and state grant opportunities.
Even if the town used the full $100,000 allocated for stormwater repairs, Nelligan contested it “would not fix the problem for many years.”
Runion said his change to approach repairs wasn’t politically motivated and it was the fairest solution for residents. He said hamlet residents were pleased with the decision.
“There are people would like to make this political,” Runion said. “This shouldn’t be a political thing. We have people that are losing their basements. We have people with mold in their house. We have people with swamps in their backyards. … This is something that we ought to all be working together to help people maintain their quality of life and keep up their property values.”
