Car wash owners get an unexpected soaking

About eight or nine years ago, Patrick and Karen McGovern decided to go into the car wash business.

It made sense on several levels.

Electrical wiring for car washes was one specialty of Pat's contracting business, McGovern Electrical, and they had spotted an appealing location on Routes 9 and 20 in their hometown of Schodack. They figured the building, which would be within range of municipal water and sewer lines, also could serve as an office for the electrical business.

The McGoverns put together a business plan, which included a long-term lease of the land, and secured a building permit and other necessary approvals from the town.

In August 2002, they paid a $5,000 fee for the sewer hookup and $2,500 for the water connection, as requested by the town. At the time, the Schodack administration was headed by Supervisor Eileen Natoli.

In February 2003, the McGoverns celebrated the grand opening of Shine Time Car Wash, where countless vehicles have been soaped and buffed in the years since.

The McGoverns say they were surprised, then, when they received a $71,360 bill from the town of Schodack in 2007, then under a different administration, for "East Greenbush Sewer Hookup fees pursuant to agreement dated the 24th of July 1998."

The bill included a $5,000 credit for their earlier payment (made on Aug. 7, 2002), reducing the total they owe to $66,360 -- still a stunner of a sum.

That March 2007 invoice, which the McGoverns keep in a tidy three-ring binder of documents related to the business, says it is a "3rd notice," but they say it was the first they heard of the enormous sewer hookup charge.

They don't know why.

If the charge stems from some agreement with East Greenbush dating all the way back to 1998, as the notice says, why weren't they informed of it when they were building the car wash in 2002? How did they get all their Schodack town approvals, which they believed were contingent on securing the required water and sewer connections, if they had failed to pay such a whopping and allegedly mandatory fee?

The business plan they put together was carefully calculated to reflect all their anticipated costs, Karen said, and they would not have undertaken the project if the initial sewer hookup charge had been that high.

The McGoverns already swallowed one irksome surprise water charge from the town in their first year or so of operation. They say that during the summer of 2004, the town supervisor at that time, Beth Secor, delivered to them a $20,000 bill that they were told stemmed from incorrect calculation of their water rates during their first year in business.

They paid that bill, as well as other water rate increases levied since then.

But the McGoverns say this retroactive charge for a one-time hookup they paid for years ago, aside from the unfairness, is far more than they can afford, with the car-washing business slumping along with the rest of the economy.

The McGoverns have been disputing the $71,360 charge since they first learned of it three years ago, and there have been some developments since then.

The amount the town is trying to collect has been reduced to $35,000 ($40,000, minus the previous $5,000 payment), but they say it's still far more than they can pay.

Last year, shortly before Secor left office, the charge was turned over to Rensselaer County tax authorities for collection -- and initially was improperly attached to the tax obligations of Shine Time's landlords, Eric and Brian Hart.

As I write, I'm still scratching my head about the whole thing.

Dennis Dowds, the current Schodack supervisor who took office this year, said he knows little about the circumstances that led to the belated sewer hookup bill.

"I've been here for seven months, and I'm still trying to figure it out," he said. "I got blind-sided in January, when I found out it had been levied on the tax bill."

"This was a sewer connection fee," Dowds said. "We collect it, but it goes to East Greenbush," which operates the treatment plant that accepts the wastewater.

The McGoverns may have paid a $5,000 Schodack sewer connection fee in 2002, Dowds said, but "the fee that is in contention is the East Greenbush part of the sewer connection fee. Even though Schodack levied it, that is just a straight pass-through. We don't get a penny of it."

Dowds suggested I speak with East Greenbush Supervisor Rick McCabe, who also was apologetic about his inability to explain exactly what happened and why.

"My knowledge of this is not 100 percent, by any means," he said.

He said the reduction of the charge to $35,000 -- which the McGoverns say now has grown back up to $38,000 because of late fees being assessed by the county -- resulted from an agreement negotiated by lawyers for Schodack and East Greenbush.

Dowds and McCabe say some other businesses in Schodack Sewer District 6, which includes an area near I-90 Exit 10, have agreed to pay the reduced retroactive sewer hookup charge. I can't tell you, at this point, how much the circumstances for those businesses might differ from those of Shine Time.

Questions abound, and there are few folks in authority now who know the answers firsthand.

Did Schodack fail to inform the McGoverns of the full sewer connection costs eight years ago, as they were building the car wash, and then forget to bill them for it? Was that supposed to be East Greenbush's responsibility, since the sewer system belongs to that town?

Did earlier bills go to the wrong address or the wrong people? Were big retroactive connection fees added later to make up for some shortfall in Schodack's fund for sewer payments to East Greenbush?

It seems like the answer to at least one of those key questions would have to be "yes." If so, someone clearly made a costly mistake, but it's hard to imagine a good reason why the McGoverns should have to pay for it.
