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Oneonta delays Cooperstown Baseball Village water hookup amid reservoir and district concerns
Summary
City staff told the board the municipal water plant is limited by reservoir and pumping constraints (about 2,000,000 gallons/day currently) and the city will not proceed with a water sale until capacity and water-district issues are resolved; a public workshop with engineers is planned.
Oneonta city officials told the appeals board they are not yet ready to approve a water connection for the proposed Cooperstown Baseball Village because of current reservoir and pumping limitations, questions about technical independence of the applicant’s engineer, and the lack of an established town water district.
Officials said the city’s water plant has a design capacity of about 4,000,000 gallons per day but — due to reservoir levels and silting in the lower reservoir — staff reported they were able to pump approximately 2,000,000 gallons per day at the time of the discussion. That lower operational output, together with drought concerns and uncertainty about how much the baseball village would draw, led staff to recommend delaying approval.
City staff also raised governance and billing issues: water customers outside the municipal boundary currently pay 1.5 times the city rate, and the city cannot place unpaid town water charges on town property tax bills because those areas are outside the city’s taxing jurisdiction. Board members said that until a water district (for example, a West End Water District) is formed in the town, the city has limited enforcement and collection options. The board noted the engineering firm Barton & Lejudice serves as engineer for both the town and the baseball camp, a dual role board members described as potentially problematic.
Officials said the baseball-camp developer would fund construction of any pipeline and metering; the city would inspect the work and the developer would pay inspection costs. Estimates discussed in the meeting included a pipeline/meters construction cost on the order of $1.8 million and an anticipated city revenue of about $68,000 per year under the current proposal, but staff emphasized these figures require verification from engineering. The board asked the city to schedule a public workshop with the engineering department and city administrator in the spring to further examine capacity, district formation, and billing/collection arrangements before making a decision.
No formal action was taken; the board resolved to request additional technical details and to hold a workshop to gather expert input and data before advancing the proposal.
