Paradise sewer meetings continue

Outside the “meeting hall” which was chosen by necessity for the latest round in the Paradise sewer squabble, the late summer sun was a ball of fluorescent orange hanging above light gray silhouettes of surrounding mountains.

Both were painted by months of smoke from a seemingly endless supply of wildfires, on a hot, sticky evening.

Remarkably, despite the obvious and annoying circumstances that sparked a few brief, testy exchanges between the two “sides” gathered on a Friday evening, calm and cool generally ruled.

With the proposed $4.5 million sewer project halted in its tracks by a determined group of sewer foes, there were a few tense exchanges among the 15 sweaty people packed into the town’s water pump house building marked what was otherwise a rational exchange of ideas.

Among the attendees was property owner and potential developer Bridger Bischoff, whose now expired agreements with original members of the Board to develop the proposed sewer system has sparked a solid backlash of anti-sewer/development among the majority of the town’s approximately 80 residents.

“I came here to engage in good conversation with everyone,” Bischoff said. “I am always interested in good discussion”.

The current Board, chaired for this meeting by Terry Caldwell, a local property owner/businessman, agreed that for all intents and purposes the long-proposed project, designed by regional engineering heavyweight Great West Engineering, had been stopped.

Caldwell opened the meeting, held in the pump house when the town’s school-house was not available as it had been for several previous public sewer meetings. He told the gathering “we all want what is best for the community.”

“Things have not been stopped (in relation to a sewer project),” Caldwell said, “we have just moved on to the next steps in the process.”

Paradise resident Cody Lampman asked “what is the plan?”, to which another newcomer to the Board, Janice Barber replied “We don’t have a plan, we just want to talk about the whole thing.”

Caldwell would later admit that the project has indeed been “stopped.”

That prompted an outburst by vocal anti-sewer leader LeeAnn Overman, who said she and other opponents of the project “are tired of being held hostage by one man (Bischoff). We don’t want to pay for your subdivision,” she told Bischoff. “We’ve been held hostage for several years.”

Caldwell admonished Overman for rehashing the same things she has said before.

“We’ve already been through those arguments and have moved on,” he told her. “I will not let you do this again. Keep it clean, keep it proper.”

With that, Overman was informed her time for speaking was up.

Bischoff, who has been the object of ire from many of the protesters for his proposed housing development and sewer hookup they feel unfairly leans heavily in his favor, took the verbal exchange in stride.

“I understand the feelings expressed and I have no problem with that,” he said. Looking at Overman he added, “My door is open any time you want to have a conversation.”

Area resident and engineer Katy French, who has been at the forefront of the plan to halt the project, wanted to know what would happen to the millions of dollars in approved grant money that has been set aside for the project if the original proposal is derailed.

“Does that grant money now have to be returned?” she asked. “It was based on the original design. What happens to that?”

Board members mulled that inquiry over before declaring the emphasis would be placed on an Advanced Research Projects Agency grant of $1.9 million that can be used for further matters involving the proposed sewer.

“What we would like is to get a system in that would allow anyone who doesn’t want to hook up to it do so while also allowing anyone who does want to hook up the option to do so,” Caldwell said. “We are going to try to work together to accommodate everyone we can.”

French seemed satisfied with that approach.

“I totally applaud the Board for what it has done in regard to that approach,” French said, while at the same time cautioning the Board. “The developer has to pay his fair share. A grant is not supposed to serve one developer.”

Two members of the current Board, including President Sunny Chase, who was not at the Friday meeting, and Rick McCollough who did attend, are currently facing a recall vote largely because of what opponents say is unwavering and less than transparent support of the original project.

“The Board we had before said we want a sewer and didn’t care how it was done,” French said. “We want an outcome that is based on what everyone wants.”