REEDSPORT — What was intended to be a joint meeting of the Reedsport City Council and the Gardiner Sanitation District to discuss of a new wastewater treatment contract, ended with GSD questioning not the future, but the past.

The Feb. 19 meeting in Reedsport council chambers ended with the Gardiner board refusing to look at a new contract until the current one is cleared up.

At issue are some overpayments the Gardiner District claims it has been paying for the past 10 years.

Currently, Gardiner’s wastewater is treated by Reedsport, and both sides decided to discuss a new agreement that was to have replaced the current one that still has four years to go.

Gardiner treasurer Dixie Hash, after months of research and meetings with Reedsport staff and officials, found that Gardiner had been billed for work done on the collection system — something the district claims it is not required to pay for.

In the new contract offered by Reedsport, it admits the mistake in billing.

 According to the district’s interpretation of what Reedsport is proposing in a draft document, it is only willing to credit Gardiner with three years — and not the 10 years the Gardiner board feels the district is owed.

“I know this wasn’t done intentionally, but we really need it to be corrected by the city,” Hash told the council. “Put yourself in our place. Would you accept getting such a small amount back? We have a population that is 71 percent lower income or fixed-income people. We can’t present this to them.”

Reedsport City Manager Rick Hohnbaum admitted that the city made a mistake in 1997, but added that the new contract called for correcting that error.

“The new contract allows a payback on the overage, which amounted to about $1,000 a year,” Hohnbaum said. “It also covers the EPA, operation, maintenance and engineering fees, about $82,000 in credits back to the district as an inducement to enter into a new agreement.”

When Hash inquired about recouping lost interest on the overcharge amount, Reedsport mayor Keith Tymchuk said the city wanted to make good on any moneys owed, but the city would need more than just a speculative amount.

“By all means, if there is proof in the billing process over the past 10 years that the city has inadvertently overcharged, we should make good,” Tymchuk said. “But we’ll need a specific amount that you can substantiate, and I’m sure you can get all the help you need from staff, but I doubt you’ll collect interest.”

Hohnbaum said the city accepts some of the blame for the miscalculations, but Gardiner never raised questions about their billing until recently.

“Every year they are presented with the bill for the upcoming year,” Hohnbaum said, “and every year they are told that if there are any questions of issues with the bill that they should let the city know.”

Hohnbaum said the city was unaware of the error until the district brought it to his attention.

“We always just took from what we did the previous year in billing and copied it to the next,” Hohnbaum said. “We never caught the error made back in 1997, and now it’s sort of snowballed.”

Hash said Reedsport legal counsel Steve Miller was one of the people who helped put the original contract together and, while it may not be the current city council’s doing, the account has been mismanaged and should be straightened out.

“We don’t blame the current city council. We don’t feel they did anything intentionally,” Hash said.

Both sides said that working with a mediator, rather than a lawyer, to work out the differences could be economically better for both entities.

Tymchuk agreed but felt that should be a step taken only after the two groups appoint a smaller contingent to talk over the differences.

“I’m willing to sit down and discuss what the issues are, as long as you remember that I can’t take any action,” Tymchuk told Hash and Gardiner Chairwoman Jackie Degman. “But I can certainly bring it back to the board. All I ask, like I said before, is that you give us an amount and documentation so we have somewhere to go.”

Hash said she would go through all the past bills, with the help of city staff, in order to come up with a concrete number and let Tymchuk and Otis know when that would be.

“There are 10 years worth of bills I need to look through, and I have no idea how long that’s going to take,” Hash said. “But I will get back to you with a date. We really need to work this out.”