City, rural water conflict continues over territory
December 6, 2012 at 12:56 am in The Jamestown Sun
While negotiations between Jamestown and Stutsman Rural Water District remain at an impasse, Jamestown Mayor Katie Andersen lobbied North Dakota water officials to withhold further funding from the rural water district, according to a leader of a North Dakota water organization.
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We are waiting for Stutsman County Rural Water to receive funding to expand in our area, hopefully Anderson didn’t screw this up. What will the next fight be over? The Spiritwood Energy Park. Anderson is the mayor of a small town that has little growth, not the czar of a booming area. Maybe she should MHOB.
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Andersen said, for example, state grant funding for improvements to the Rural Water treatment plant would increase its capacity and give it an advantage in the area.
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Unbelievable! Improving the Rural Water treatment plant would benefit a lot of people in the surrounding area. I guess they don’t matter to the leaders in Jamestown.
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The city could have handled this better from the beginning and not anexed the land until the water issue was settled. Why do we have a city administrator? Who issued the permits to build? The city administrator? The city engineer? The city building inspector? The council? The Planning commission? The Mayor? The territory is the rural water’s territory. Why does the mayor want the city to take over that territory?
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People should really do some research before they just throw things out there.
North Dakota Century Code 61-35-26 – Annexation of land by a municipality
A district organized under this title or title 10 must be fairly compensated for losses resulting from annexation by a city under chapter 40-51.2. If a district has outstanding bonds, the annexation proceedings must be in accordance with the bond resolution or trust indenture. The governing body of a city and the board of directors of the district may agree to terms that provide that the facilities owned by the district and located within the city must be retained by the district for the purpose of transporting water to customers outside the municipality.
There was nothing for the City of Jamestown to compensate Stutsman County Rural Water for, as there were no facilities existing at the time, just empty fields. When Jamestown Annexed the land, THEY provided the services to the area including all of the redundancies. SCRW could not provide these at the time.
Tell me how the city was in the wrong? You can’t claim future services as losses as the future expansions are the exact reasons for annexation.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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That does not give Jamestown or the mayor the right to try to stop rural water expansion in any other area.
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I didn’t say it did. I was replying to a comment.
And remember, this wasn’t the city stating that, it was one official.
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And doesn’t that official speak for the city?
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