Emerging as an issue for the County Water District Board of Directors is a notice from a Gracepoint Church at 900 Barrett Road that they want to extend their water line under Wicks Lane in order to connect to the City of Billings water system, rather than be a customer of the County Water District.
The District Board is resistant to agreeing to the request because they do not want to establish a precedent.
The District received the notice from Precision Engineering on behalf of Gracepoint Church.
District Board President Doug Kary reported on a legal interpretation of the law as it pertains to the issue from the district’s attorney. There is no “clear cut answer” about it, said Kary, ”because it hasn’t gone to court to write that clear cut answer.” However, “the attorney said that if we can define boundaries and that if it (the church) is within the boundaries, there should be no reason that the courts would not find in our favor.”
Assistant District Manager Josh Simpson commented, “The city’s rules and regulations specify that if it is in the Heights Water District, all Heights Water District standards apply. Their own rules and regulations call out our district specifically, and separately from their own.”
With the notice coming from Performance Engineering, Kary said, “in my mind there is a little conflict of interest for the city, because one of the lead guys for Performance Engineering is also on the council for the city.”
Board member Ming Cabrera asked, “Can’t we excuse … Read rest of story here.
