MORGANTOWN — Morgantown City Manager Paul Brake said he was “puzzled and disappointed” by the Morgantown Utility Board’s decision Monday to abruptly withdraw its interest in running a water line through White Park.
Even so, Brake said he believes an agreement can still be reached.
Brake, along with multiple members of Morgantown City Council, said they were caught off guard by the decision, which threatened to end ongoing negotiations between MUB, the city and BOPARC on a licensing agreement that would allow the utility to bury a 30-inch, gravity-fed water line through the park as part the infrastructure for the new George B. Flegal Reservoir, currently under construction along Cobun Creek.
“Honestly, I don’t know what the motivation is, but that’s not bargaining in good faith,” Brake said. “I reached out to [MUB General Manager] Tim Ball. It’s my hope to continue to work with them. We have a cooperative relationship, but that came out of the blue.”
The identification of an acceptable route through the park and subsequent negotiations of a licensing agreement have been a monthslong, public process that’s resulted in a number of concessions by MUB, including the planting of two trees for every one removed and the construction of a new walking trail and footbridge.
This came after the utility raised public ire when it was learned its original planned path through the park would impact hundreds of mature trees along the main trail. MUB admitted it jumped the gun in assuming it could access the park and immediately abandoned that original route.
On Monday, the MUB board voted to abandon its plan to run the pipe through the park altogether, citing a breakdown in negotiations centered around a trio of demands from the city and BOPARC it claimed were “beyond any reasonable reach,” including:
- The city’s insistence on language allowing it to order the proposed $3 million pipeline be removed at any time, for any reason, at MUB’s expense.
- BOPARC’s demand for payment of replacement value of trees estimated at more than $1 million in addition to MUB’s pledge to plant two trees for every one removed during pipeline construction.
- BOPARC’s demand that MUB not just allow, but build at its expense, recreational features at the new Flegal Reservoir.
MUB said it would instead begin efforts to build a pumping station and bury the line beneath Mississippi Street — a much longer and more expensive route that would impact hundreds of residents in the First Ward — not to mention potentially come with customer rate increases to cover the $8.54 million price tag.
Brake said he’s confident the negotiations will continue, indicating the sides are probably 90% in agreement on the terms of the deal, and he feels cutting off negotiations is unfair to the citizens of Morgantown and MUB’s rate-payers across the county.
“We’re all working for the same people, and I told Tim that earlier today,” Brake said.
Asked if he believed there can be agreement on the three main issues raised by MUB, Brake said, “I think so.”
Ball indicated in an email to Brake the utility will not turn its back on negotiations, but confidence a deal can be reached is not high on MUB’s end.
“I think that our differences are great, and based on the little progress achieved so far despite similar earlier assurances, I don’t expect to reach an agreement; but I invited you to surprise me and prove me wrong,” Ball wrote, summing up an earlier phone conversation with Brake.
During his report at the end of Tuesday’s council meeting, Mayor Bill Kawecki said he’s hopeful MUB’s actions don’t represent a line in the sand.
“I sincerely hope that this is not a dead end for us. I sincerely hope we can go on, because I’d hate for this to be a line drawn in the sand to where it serves no good purpose,” Kawecki said.
Morgantown City Council discussed the issue in executive session during Tuesday’s meeting and authorized Brake to continue efforts to negotiate a settlement.
