The protest period for property owners in the Tri-City Regional Sanitary District (TRSD) came to an end at midnight Dec. 18 and in a rush to record them, the TRSD board called a special meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 19.

Amid the confusion and frustration of residents upset about the way the district went about collecting protests, the TRSD board and its legal counsel, Bill Clemmens, was unable to say with any authority whether all protests had been counted.

At issue was whether the deadline for submitting protests meant the actual documents in-hand or whether protests postmarked prior to midnight Dec. 18 would be collected and counted. There were also several complaints from residents who said they did not receive notifications in the mail.

The process for protests to halt the long-awaited sewer project is mandated by the state, outlined in Arizona Revised Statute 48-2046, “Publication of resolution of intention; posting notice of resolution; mailing notice,” which reads:

“A. The resolution of intention shall be published five times in consecutive issues of a daily newspaper or two times in a weekly or semiweekly newspaper of general circulation in the sanitary district. The board shall also cause to be conspicuously posted along the location of the proposed improvement, at not more than three hundred feet apart, notices of the passage of the resolution. The notice shall be headed ‘notice of proposed improvement,’ in letters at least one inch in height, and shall state the fact of the passage of the resolution of intention and briefly describe the improvement proposed.

“B. The board shall cause to be sent to each property owner whose property may be assessed a notice of the passage of the resolution, which contains a brief description of the proposed improvement. The notices shall be sent by United States mail to each name on the most recent equalized property tax roll.”

The protest period began at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 4, the date of the most recent regularly scheduled TRSD meeting.

At the Wednesday meeting, Clemmens called for a motion to transfer the protests his office received, ending the duties of Roxie Hadley, who was appointed “clerk of the board” in order to collect the protests.

A relatively small stack of protests was presented to the board as Hadley read the names of those received.

Hadley, Clemmens’ legal assistant, was appointed by the board at its Oct. 25 meeting, and Clemmens’ law offices, located at 136 N. Miami Ave., Miami was approved as the location to accept the protests.

At the time, members of the public suggested a third-party be enlisted to collect the protests, as Clemmens has a financial interest in the TRSD, going forward. The board said it would consider it, but appointed Hadley that night.

In August, the district approved payment of $2,050 for “services rendered, and expenses incurred” by Clemmens’ office for the month of July.

But in the wake of USDA funding approval, those payments ballooned to $9,916.17 in August, according to minutes from the Sept. 4 TRSD meeting. In September, the district paid out $4,491.81 to Clemmens and $13,625.61 for October. November legal expenses and services cost the district $12,412.34, according to minutes posted on the TRSD website.

After the reading of the list of names, members of the public at the meeting called out names of people they knew who filed protests, and complained about many people not receiving notices of the protest period or instructions on filing.

Hadley acknowledged one member who she knew had filed but was not included in the packet of protests handed off to the board.

That was also when the public questioned whether the board would accept documents with postmarks within the proscribed timeframe that had not been received.

Clemmens instructed those attending to fill out public speaker requests with their concerns for the board to address, most likely at a future meeting.

Board Treasurer Mary Anne Moreno said protests with a postmark within the allotted time would have to be counted, but Clemmens said that was not his understanding of the process and he would have to review the issue with bond counsel Fred Rosenstein.

“We will address that issue when we review them,” Clemmens said. “I don’t want to address that tonight.”

He said the next step would be to forward the protests to the TRSD engineer, Mike Krebs of PACE Advanced Water Engineering, who will calculate the footage of the properties that protested.

The final tally will be based on the frontage of each property: If the property has 50 feet of frontage, that will equal 50 votes. If it has 100 feet of frontage, 100 votes.

All the footage will be added up and if the protestors come up one foot above 50 percent, the project will not go forward, and the funding will go back to the USDA.

“If there are protests that have concerns, they may be addressed at a meeting, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” Clemmens said. “Depending on when they are reviewed, [Krebs] will have the bond counsel — the attorney that represents the funding of this project — he will review any questions like the mailing question I just heard come up as far as when it was received by the postmark date or when it [was] received at the office of the clerk.”

One member of the public complained that he spoke to Clemmens at his bar, the Wild Horse Saloon in Miami, and that he was told he would be informed the date of the final day to protest. Clemmens assured him he would, but the man claimed it did not happen.

“My intent when I came to your office that day was to file a protest,” he said. “I was told that day that the final posting hadn’t been made and that I would be informed when the final posting had been made.”

Shortly after that exchange, the meeting was quietly adjourned.

One protest of note came from Globe City Councilmember Charlene Giles, who explained her reasoning in a text message subsequent to the TRSD meeting.

“Two reasons for my protest vote: First, I never received any notice, paperwork or anything. Many others have said this also,” she said. “[The notices] should have been sent registered mail. Also, the protest instructions were not clear: property owners should not have had to provide maps and frontages when the sewer district already had them.

“Secondly, Globe and Miami are both at half capacity, and could easily take the effluent and it would cost one-third the money,” Giles concluded.

Another protestor was Jay Spehar, who chairs and has served on the Miami Wastewater Advisory Board for about 10 years as a pro bono volunteer and as both a member and as chairman.

Spehar said that he was also on the Industrial Development Board (IDA) and worked with Fred Barcón and others to do a wastewater study similar to the one proposed by Gila County earlier this month.

“I am all in favor of wastewater projects,” said Spehar. “While I’m committed to have good wastewater services for the community, I am opposed to any project that doesn’t take advantage of the economic synergies that are available to us.”

Spehar referred to the Globe and Miami wastewater facilities that have “huge capacities.”

“Why should we have excess capacity and have a third treatment plant?” he asked. “The entities should sit down and work this out.”

Spehar reiterated that he is not opposed to good wastewater services, but rather “opposed to them wasting my money.”

Should the project go forward, the third and final phase is likely to include agreements with the City of Globe to share infrastructure and management of the easternmost portion of the TRSD designated management area (DMA).

The scope of the proposed project includes the installation of 58,000 linear feet of gravity sewer lines, 7,500 feet of forced sewer main lines, approximately 145 new manholes, 856 new service connections, sewage water lift stations, and water reclamation facility to process 250,000 gallons per day.

The system would serve Lower Miami, Claypool, Miami Gardens, Country Club Manor, Midland City, Bechtel Tract and Central Heights, encompassing five and one-half square miles with an estimated population of 4,022 with approximately 2,000 hookups.

Board estimates are that it will take two years to build Phase I once all easements and rights of way are acquired and all surveying is done.

The next meeting of the TRSD will take place at the IBEW building, located at 1383 N. Hwy. 188, in Globe on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019 at 5:15 p.m. Newly elected board members Stephen Palmer and Bill Tower will be seated at that meeting.

Longtime board member Bob Zache was not re-elected after serving the TRSD since its inception.

For more coverage of the TRSD, go here.