Fire Town Council! Rep Mark Pless just disclosed the entire 25 million sewer system could have been paid by the State!

[Forum Member]

Setting the record straight. Mark Pless sets the record straight in this video with Team Waynesville.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u0btkWshtA

State of NC Rep. Mark Pless just disclosed the current Town of Waynesville City Council never even tried to get funding for the new sewer system from the state and they could have easily asked for the entire 25 million! Instead they decided to borrow the 25 million and force the citizens of the town to pay it back by raising sewer bills! This is outrageous to discover and totally unacceptable that the current board would put politics before caring about the citizens of Waynesville. Pless has been able to get money for the Town of Canton and Maggie Valley in Haywood County and Hot Springs, Mars Hill and Marshall in Madison County. Only the Town of Waynesville was left out in the cold because the current town council either dropped the ball or intentionally failed to get funding for our Waynesville sewer system. If that doesn't make you want to vote for an entire new mayor and town council I don't know what will.

The Mountaineer reported in August 2, 2022 that town manager Rob Hites stated there was a mix up at the state level about being on the distressed list so a grant they applied for got denied. This is entirely diffenent from picking up the phone and asking Rep. Mark Pless for funding for the town sewer system.

Thanks to lobbying, the town got moved to the at-risk list and eventually to the distressed list, making its application more competitive. Or so it thought.
After the grant was rejected, the town learned it hadn’t been moved to the distressed list after all. Hites is still attempting to get to the bottom of the mix up.
“We asked why we were placed in a lower category and why we weren’t notified. We should have at least gotten a letter,” Hites said.

So Hites decided to go ahead with a loan instead of reapplying because the price was increasing. Now, since a loan was obtained, Waynesville can't be designated distressed because a loan is a remedy to the problem. Why didn't the town officials call Rep. Mark Pless at this point and ask for help with the sewer crisis?
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/gra ... 04f0b.html
 
The Mountaineer just reported the Town of Waynesville has received "good news" about the sewer plant rebuild. The Town of Waynesville got an approval for a $20 million loan for the new sewer plant and, due to the slow moving Town of Wayneville City Council, the price increased an additional $5 million. They were discussing a possible grant but they got another $5 million loan instead! What about this additional loan is GOOD NEWS for citizens? This headline is to deceive the public the month before election to make it sound like good news. Fire the current Town of Waynesville Council on November 7th!
https://news.yahoo.com/waynesville-gets ... 00017.html

Town of Waynesville Manager Rob Hites was hired in August 2016 knowing the Town of Waynesville Sewer system was failing and his job would be to oversee a new sewer system. After seven years of studies and price increases, only to finally start construction after the State of NC placed a moratorium on construction in 2022, shows citizens he wasn't the man for the job. Citizens considered it a blessing and a curse because it stopped the uncontrolled housing and apartment growth until the estimated completion date of 2025, but it also stops the construction of any industry, department store or restaurant from being built until 2025 unless they use an existing building with equal sewer capacity. Citizens of the Town of Waynesville will see the price of this 29.5 million loan for a new sewer plant reflected on their bill as stated in the Mountaineer article posted below. "Paying off the loan over time will be absorbed by sewer customers, and not just those in Waynesville. The plant handles sewage from Clyde to Lake Junaluska to lower Crabtree." Posted below is a timeline of the sewer plant fiasco and how it has evolved.

https://www.themountaineer.com/news/to- ... 7fcb7.html

May 2022: WLOS Waynesville is under a sewer moratoriam
https://wlos.com/news/local/waynesville ... n-feichter

May 2022: Untreated Waste pouring into Richaland Creek and the Pigeon River. The Town of Waynesville is fined
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/her ... e9b85.html

May 2022: The State of NC issues a special order of consent which limits building
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/way ... 1e134.html

May 2022 Waynesville Sewer Plant Saga continues...
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/way ... user-share

March 2022: A rash of large-scale developments have nearly maxed out the capacity for the town's sewer treatment plant that would bring growth to a screeching halt. State regulators warned the town more than three years ago the day would come when the failing sewer plant couldn't handle anymore volume.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sew ... 00318.html

March 2022: Frustration over more and more big development hits boiling point in Waynesville. The sewer moratorium is discussed.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/frustration- ... 00914.html

January 2022: The Mountaineer reported the sewer plant had jumped from 19.5 million to 27 million.
https://sports.yahoo.com/sticker-shock- ... 00668.html

January 2022: Smoky Mountain News reports price of new sewer plant jumped from 19 million to 28 million.
https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/ ... er-project

August 2021 Hites says deveoplment is unprecedented
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/dev ... 4fba5.html

January 2021: Hites, an admittedly groupie when it comes to sewer plants, so much so the first dinner date with his wife was capped off with a tour of the sewer plant in the town where he worked at the time. He also oversaw a sewer plant rebuild in his previous manager role before coming to Waynesville.
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/sew ... 71ec5.html

November 2019: Rob Hites states the failing 1960's sewer plant is on its last leg and under a best case scenario it won't be completed until 2023.
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/smo ... 41dda.html

January 2019: Rob Hites states Waynesville will wrap up over two years of preliminary analysis and studies by McGill Engineering out of Asheville, bringing the total spent to date on planning and analysis to $300,000. Next is the formal engineering and design phase that will last for two years, with construction getting underway in 2022.
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/the ... b8162.html

September 2018: Mountaineer article, The state turns up the heat on Waynesville over failing sewer plant. Rob Hites stated "Now we have a dog nipping at our heels. That may be a terrible analogy, but that's what it is. The hammer is over us right now and if we ignore this, there will be a moratorium".
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/sta ... 05980.html

August 2018: Since 2016 the Town of Waynesville's wastewater treatment plant has received 41 notices of violations and racked up $14,000 in fines for violating the state/federal clean water standards.
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/way ... 5fbcd.html

[Forum Member]

Below this paragraph I have broken down how in 3 years Mark Pless NC House of Representatives has provided $72,200,000 to Haywood and Madison Counties just for water and sewer project requests. This doesn't include all the appropriations I have obtained for my counties. This is only water and sewer. There was no grant application only a phone call to me. No local board resolutions requesting funding were requested or submitted. A simple phone call was sufficient. The context in which the Mountaineer representative presented her case is a further example of how my statements are twisted and presented to suggest I lie. The statement I made Saturday was in pointing out simply Waynesville Town Board drove all the way to Raleigh (over 260 Miles one way) to protest partisan elections however they will not ask their Republican House Member for the $25 million to rebuild the Waynesville water treatment facility. They protest partisanship but the board refuses to call their House Member who lives 10 miles away and ask for the money. The money would not have been a loan to be repaid. It would have cost the residents of Waynesville nothing. If you haven't lived in Waynesville long enough to pick up on the Mountaineer here is a synopsis of them. They are rarely completely truthful because it doesn't stimulate readership. They are always biased against me because I refuse to speak to the person who wrote to you. I hope this helps clear things up for you and the truth about what happened.
>
> In 2023 the town of Canton didn't apply for a grant they simply ask Mark Pless the NC House member for 38 million for water and sewer. They got 38 million in the 2023 budget on an earmark (directed appropriation) for water and sewer.
> In 2023 Madison County didn't apply for a grant they simply ask Mark Pless the NC House member for 18 million for water and sewer. The first 2.9 million for the Fairview community of Hot Springs which has a community water system which needs to be replaced. They also requested 15.1 million for Madison county, Mars Hill and Marshall to complete the water and sewer project funded in 2021. In the 2023 budget Madison county received 18 million for water and sewer as an earmark (directed appropriation) 2.9 million is for Fairview and the remaining 15.1 is for the joint project.
> Clyde didn't apply for a grant they ask their NC House member Mark Pless for 1.2 million for water and sewer. They got 1.2 million in the 2021 budget as an earmark (directed appropriation).
> Madison County, Mars Hill and Marshall didn't apply for a grant they ask their NC House member Mark Pless for 14 million in 2021 for water and sewer. Madison County as the lead agency received 14 million as an earmark (directed appropriation) in the 2021 budget for the project.
> The Town of Hot Springs had been turned down for numerous grants previous. In March 2021 they simply requested 1 million for water and sewer from their NC House member Mark Pless. In the 2021 budget Hot Springs received 1 million as an earmark (directed appropriation).
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> NC House 118
> Haywood & Madison
> Representative Mark Pless
> 300 N. Salisbury Street
> Room 306A1
> Raleigh, NC 27603
> 919-733-5732
>
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[Forum Member]

Bombshell! The entire 25 million sewer system rebuild could have been paid by the State of NC but the current Town of Waynesville City Council failed to ask for the money! This is totally unacceptable folks!