Cornwall Borough Council talks water/sewer admin at special meeting

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Cornwall Borough Council met for an information-only public meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday to discuss the future of the water and sewer director position.

This comes as current water and sewer administrator Barbara Henry plans to retire March 13. During an executive session Feb. 9, council discussed hiring a full-time water and sewer director/assistant borough manager to handle Henry’s workload alongside borough manager Cody Rhoads.

Though council members came to an unofficial consensus during the executive session, councilwoman Julie Bowman said, email exchanges afterwards revealed disagreements on next steps. Though the emails weren’t discussed in further detail, Bowman said they were the reason the special meeting was scheduled.

Council heard from engineer Jeff Steckbeck for more information on water and sewer administration. Steckbeck explained that he has been involved with water and sewer for around 40 years, including current management of the West Cornwall Water Authority and work in Cornwall.

Steckbeck applauded Henry’s work, saying that he felt she made enough improvements to water and sewer administration that it will be slightly easier for her replacement.

“She’s turned your system from average to exceptional,” said Steckbeck, describing work Henry has done to modernize the systems. “She does a fantastic job and she makes difficult things look easy.”

Henry oversees Cornwall’s roughly 2,000 water and sewer customers and internal processes for the system, a job that involves customer service (including handling mailings and notification of issues with the system), filing reports to DEP and other organizations, coordinating with the road crew and engineer, meeting with developers, developing a budget, daily bookkeeping, updating databases, and maintaining licensing, among other responsibilities. Steckbeck provided council members with a list of Henry’s responsibilities, and anticipated her workload at 1,000 hours of direct time, though he said he doesn’t know whether his list includes all of her tasks.

Steckbeck said that, in West Cornwall, the City of Lebanon Water Authority (CoLA) is used as a billing agent. For water and sewer customers, each bill costs the township $6.50, whereas in Cornwall Henry handles billing.

In earlier discussions, council floated the possibility of having Rhoads take over the majority of Henry’s workload, which was one consideration for a 6.6% salary increase for Rhoads in 2026. When the budget was passed, funds were allotted to pay the equivalent of Henry’s salary the entire year, though at that time council had not decided whether to keep her position after her retirement.

Steckbeck applauded Rhoads’ work in the borough, noting that he had recently been assigned management of West Cornwall on a subcontract basis (which Steckbeck said may generate the borough between $50,000 and $60,000 annually). He said he felt Rhoads should not be asked to carry Henry’s workload alone.

“I’d hate to see him inundated with all this work by himself,” said Steckbeck. “I don’t think he could handle it, and I fear that you’d lose him. That would be a tremendous loss; you’d have to train a new person. I don’t think the new person would be willing to take on the task of managing your borough and the township, plus now a water and sewer system.”

Councilmen John Lux and Eric Tobias, both sworn in in January, criticized council for not ironing out this issue prior to this year, especially as Henry is set to retire this month.

Councilman and water and sewer committee member Bruce Conrad said the committee has recommended hiring a new employee for the position for two and a half years.

Rhoads said the borough has advertised for the position, but so far only received one application. Henry has offered to continue to work temporarily for the borough part-time after retirement to train her replacement.

Bowman said that part of the reason for the special meeting is that it was unclear how heavy the advertised position would be on water and sewer administration as opposed to general borough management.

Conrad said the water and sewer committee had put together a three- to four-page job description. He said he felt it was the committee’s role to be involved in the hiring process and make a recommendation to council, which could choose to approve or reject an applicant.

“We’re talking about getting a complete replacement for Barb Henry,” Conrad said to council. “It’s the job of your committee to do that and recommend somebody to you. Just let us do our job, that’s all we’re saying.”

In an informal roll call as to whether the water and sewer committee should be authorized to seek and review applicants and ultimately make a recommendation to council, Tobias said he needed to think about it, Bowman, Lux, Conrad, and councilman John Karinch said they would be in favor, and council president Harris said he didn’t know whether he would go along with it.

Tobias said he felt the information he had been provided was conflicted, in particular with regards to what plans for the position were and why Rhoads had received a raise.

At a different point in the meeting, Harris said he had been contacted by other council members who had contacted CoLA about the possibility of taking over the system. He said a previous council had floated the topic with CoLA and been rejected, though a CoLA representative said he does not know how the current board will feel.

To this, water and sewer committee member and attendee Greg Roussey said he felt it was “unethical and illegal” that a member of council had reached out to CoLA without being authorized to do so by council vote. He contrasted the occurance to ongoing discussions with the Elizabethtown Area Water Authority conducted by Conrad, which were approved by council vote. He also said he felt it was a mistake for the borough to dissolve its water authority in 2016.

Harris said council vice president Tobias had the authority to reach out and no decisions were made. Tobias said he was just checking the borough’s options.

Lux accused Conrad of making promises to residents outside of formal business, citing recent communication Conrad had with residents of a Tice Lane home who claimed damage from the borough water system. Lux also said Conrad’s stories changed over time.

Conrad said he did not make any promises, but the water and sewer committee told the resident they would do whatever they could to right the situation. He said there is a historic precedent for compensating residents for damage caused by borough infrastructure.

Council also discussed the possibility of establishing wells near Miners Lake on land owned by Byler Holdings. As talks with the Elizabethtown Area Water Authority are still in progress, no action is possible at this time. However, Harris said he had heard from CoLA that they were concerned about possible health risks from reversing the flow of pipes if Cornwall established its own water source and sold excess flow to the city.

No action was taken Tuesday as the meeting was purely informational. However, council will likely continue to discuss the topic at its regular meeting March 9 at 6:30 p.m.