During the December 9th meeting of Plymouth Township’s Council, members of the council announced that they have decided to not sell the township’s sewer system. The topic came up when discussing the budget for 2020 and the need to plan for future projects like renovations to the township’s building. Over the past year, the selling of the sewer was explored as a way to fund the renovations.

Councilmember Chris Manero (D), who has stated he was against selling the system previously, started the discussion and continued his opposition. Council President Marty Higgins (D) then stated he had changed his mind over the course of the past year. He was initially for selling the system, but due to the likely hood of rates being increased by potential purchasers like Aqua, he changed his mind. Lenore Bruno (R) and Karen Bramblet (D) agreed with Higgins’s sentiments.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported pretty extensively on this issue of what happens to rates once a system is sold, including this article from September 5, 2018).

Below is the video from the starting point of the conversation:

With the decision to not sell the sewer system, the township will need to find another source of funding for the renovations for the township building which Manero mentions could be $20 million.

The Borough of Conshohocken has recently started the process to examine selling its sewer system. We will cover that process as it moves forward.

Transparency Update:

Congratulations to Plymouth Township for finally videoing its meetings. And we give them a big shoutout for posting the videos to YouTube.com and Facebook. Conshohocken and Whitemarsh continue to only post their videos to antiquated systems on their websites. For example, because the above video was posted to YouTube.com, we were able to include at the exact starting point the conversation we were reporting on. That is not possible with videos posted by Conshohocken and Whitemarsh. West Conshohocken continues to not video its meetings.