Water War Continues, Glenview Offers Partial Payment to Niles

The Village of Glenview has offered to pay the Village of Niles 81 percent of what to customers of North Maine Utilities, according to a June 22 letter from Glenview Village Manager Todd Hileman to Niles Mayor Robert Callero.

The letter was not received--even via email--until the morning of June 22 because of power outages affecting .

But Niles Village Manager George Van Geem said he doesn’t yet know whether Niles will accept the partial payment.

“It’s in the hands of the lawyers now,” he said.

The letter is the latest development in a conflict that flared last Wednesday, when Niles filed a lawsuit against Glenview seeking $698,000 that Niles officials say Glenview owes in water bills. 

The suit claims that Niles will suffer irreparable financial harm if the bill is not paid and asks for a court injunction that would require Glenview to pay the water bill. In the meantime, Niles will continue to provide water to North Maine Utilities as a matter of public health and safety, officials said.

The $698,000 price tag represents payment for the water used by 44,000 customers of North Maine Utilities--which is owned by Glenview--in April and May. Most of North Maine’s customers are in unincorporated areas southwest of Glenview, according to Don Owen, the village’s special projects director.

However, North Maine Utilities does have some customers who live in Niles, Owen said in an email Friday morning. This spring, Glenview became aware that Niles was rebating sewer fees to its residents that are customers of North Maine, Owen said, “for being double-charged for sanitary sewer service (charged by NMU and charged by Niles via their water charge), there is a possibility that Niles has overcharged Glenview,” Owen wrote.

But Van Geem said Glenview is misreading the situation. Niles does not charge its residents for sanitary sewer service, he said, and the roughly 75 Niles residents who are North Maine customers were upset that, because they received their water and sewer through North Maine Utilities, they had to pay for sewer service, when their fellow Niles residents did not.

To make it up to them, the Niles village board voted in 2010 to rebate 19 percent of its water fee to those customers, to help make up for the sewer charge. Niles settled on 19 percent after surveying several other communities to find out how much they charged for sewer service relative to their water fees, Van Geem said.

“You try and do a good deed for somebody and it comes back to bite you,” he told Patch.

In his May 23 letter to Callero informing The Village of Niles that Glenview wished to dispute the water invoices, Hileman said that the reimbursement violates the water agreement, originally signed in 1990, seven years before Glenview bought the utility company. The agreement calls for North Maine to be charged no more for water than the lowest rate charged to Niles residents and businesses.

“This ‘reimbursement’ effectively lowers the water rate for these users; the Village’s charging North Maine a rate in excess of that charged to these users is in violation of the Agreement,” Hileman’s May 23 letter said. “Implicit in the Ordinance [allowing for the rebates] is the fact that the Village includes sewer service fees in the rates it charges its customers.”

The June 22 letter from Hileman to Callero explains that Glenview has put the entire amount of the invoices for the last two months into an interest-bearing escrow account because Glenview officials believe the village has been overcharged by more than the total amount of the withheld money over the last 14 years. The letter also says Niles implied that it would cut off water service if it did not receive at least partial payment, something that Niles made a point of explaining it would not do when it announced the lawsuit the same day the letter was sent.

According to the June 22 letter, Glenview is willing to reduce the amount of the withheld payments to 19 percent of what Niles says it is due, based on the amount of the rebate Niles offers its residents who are North Maine customers.

Glenview will begin its audit of Niles’ water invoices dating back to 1997 on July 8, Owen said. To accomplish the audit, Glenview requested copies of all residential water and sewer bills, information on how Niles sets water and sewer rates, information about the costs involved in providing water and sewer service and several other items, according to a June 6 letter.

Editor's note: Above, check out copies of correspondence from the Village of Glenview to Niles Mayor Robert Callero. Stay tuned to Patch for updates following the audit, beginning July 8.