TIPTON – After months of feasibility studies, debate and input from impacted residents, Tipton County Commissioners Monday signed an interlocal agreement with the city of Kokomo allowing Kokomo to operate a wastewater treatment plant northwest of Sharpsville that services four commercial and 56 residential customers in and around the Prairie Acres subdivision.
“After the public meeting in Sharpsville [on Sept. 8], it became clear to me that we couldn’t find any type of partnership – whether it was Prairie Acres, the city of Tipton, the city’s waste utility board, the town of Sharpsville or the commissioners – up there to where we could own that thing,” commissioner Joe Vanbibber said. “After making that determination, we decided it was in our best interests to enter into an interlocal agreement that we anticipate Kokomo agreeing with.”
Under the interlocal agreement, residents who use the wastewater treatment utility could see their bills cut in half from the roughly $108 per month they are now paying.
The city of Kokomo has made an offer to purchase the plant from the private entity that presently owns it, and all signs point to that transaction being finalized in the near future. Once Kokomo assumes ownership, under the interlocal agreement, the city will agree to not charge current or future customers in the service territory more than the rate charged to similar customers within the city’s municipal boundaries.
Kokomo is also bound to an agreement which states Tipton County may purchase all the assets in the service territory at any time by providing at least 180 days advanced notice and upon executing a purchase agreement with the city.
Also, if and when Kokomo decides to sell its assets in the service territory, it must offer Tipton County the right of first refusal to purchase the plant. In the agreement, it states Kokomo must give the county at least 60 days advance notice of any pending sale, at which time the county may purchase the system at or above the then-pending sale price.
The pending sale and interlocal agreement go before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on Oct. 1. Vanbibber doesn’t anticipate there being any hangups on the approval of the transfer and agreement, because all involved parties seem to have their interests protected.
“I think from an economic development standpoint, and from a public policy standpoint, we did our due diligence in protecting our economic development interests, and also the people of Prairie Acres, to where they got, as we understand, what they were looking for out of this agreement,” Vanbibber said.