News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters City Council plans to offer financial assistance to residents of Buck Run Phase III who were left off the city's sewer system.
Although he declined to give specifics before he talked directly to the affected parties, Mayor Steve Wilson said that, "the council is exploring a number of options that would offer resolution and minimize the financial impact on the residents."
Property owners in the 17-lot subdivision at the south end of Sisters are being required to put their own main lines and laterals in neighborhood streets to hook up to the system.
The total cost of that work, including systems development charges and hook-up fees, is estimated at approximately $12,000 per property. Many property owners have already spent thousands of dollars on septic systems that will have to be decommissioned when they hook up to the system.
The issue has generated considerable controversy because many of the property owners did not know that they would have to put in their own sewer pipes. Many homeowners say they would never have bought their lots if they'd known what they were in for.
City officials and city attorney Steve Bryant have informed the property owners many times that the subdivision was never included in the sewer system. However, different property owners were given different information at different levels of detail over an extended period of time as sewer engineering developed.
The subdivision was laid out and approved after the 1997 cut-off point that determined what parts of the City of Sisters would be served by the sewer.
Developer Mylon Buck sought approval before the sewer vote was cast and, after the sewer was approved, he elected not to put sewer pipe in the streets.
Though he insists that the city is not legally or technically responsible for the Buck Run III homeowners' plight, Wilson says he wants to help resolve the mess.
"What's more important than proving who's right or who's at fault is to provide leadership... to create a solution," Wilson told The Nugget.
That solution will likely not let the residents completely off the financial hook, nor put the whole burden on the city.
"What we're trying to accomplish is a significant reduction from what the financial impact (on the residents) would be," Wilson said.
He characterized the reduction as the difference between a "large but doable" cost and a "potentially overwhelming expense."
City officials were to arrange a meeting with all those involved this week.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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