by John Osborn

The town is predicting a 9 percent increase to the betterment fees town center property owners will be charged to cover their share of the cost to upgrade the town's failed Massachusetts Avenue wastewater plant and extend its sewer lines if a Town Meeting vote Thursday night passes to approve the borrowing of an additional half-million dollars for the project.

At a sparsely attended meeting Monday night, two town center residents objected publicly for the first time to the unpredictability of the betterment fees.

Billy Salter and Scott Hayward, both of Elm Street, said that despite the assurances of town administrator Tim Bragan and others, the risk that the project will exceed its latest estimates is too high to proceed. They said they would oppose moving forward unless their betterment fee is capped. Hayward and Salter are former members of the town committee that proposed policies for the yet to be appointed sewer commission that will manage the new town center sewer district once it is complete.

In other words, said Bragan to Hayward, "You want a fixed price at the beginning of the project,"

"Yes," said Hayward. "If we're not going to cap the betterment, I don't even want to start this project."

The exchange took place Monday night at a meeting called by Bragan and sewer building committee chairman Chris Ashley to inform town center residents how much their up-front betterment fee will increase if Town Meeting approves the additional $540,385 needed to begin work in September. The town's new estimates show the fee per single home needs to increase by about 9 percent, from $17,000 to $18,530. In 2009, Selectmen told residents that if the betterment fee rose more than 10 percent, they would return to Town Meeting for approval to proceed.

The new betterment fee estimate is based on an updated assessment of the 64 properties that lie within the boundaries of the sewer district approved by the town two years ago. By matching the list of properties with the records of the assessor's office, which determine how each property is taxed, Bragan and Finance Director Lorraine Leonard have calculated that the total number of sewer units in the district is 85. A single family home will typically be charged one betterment unit, but others will be charged more. The General Store, for example, will be charged 1.97 betterment units; the newly built Harvard Center condos will be charged 4.

Overall, private properties in the town center will pay 32 percent of the cost of building the new system; the town will pay the remaining 68 percent.

But the total cost of the project won't be known until it is complete. Only then can the betterment fee be set, and by state law, Bragan said, only the sewer commission has the authority to set it. As of this week, no commissioners have been appointed and district residents have not had an opportunity to challenge the betterment numbers assigned to their properties.

"I don't have any confidence that the betterment numbers are right," Hayward said. "That's too big a risk when we're already at nine percent…I would ask people to vote 'no' in Town Meeting unless we resolve that issue."

Hayward proposed that the Board of Selectmen or town center residents offer an amendment to the Town Meeting warrant to cap the betterment fees.

"We need to have capped betterments now," Hayward said. "Once you get into construction, you don't know where you're going."

But Ashley warned that time is of the essence and if the funding request is voted down Thursday, the project will likely die. The town has always shown fairness and goodwill in its decisions, he said.

"If there's not a way to reasonably share a resource with some unknowns in it, perhaps the thing should die," Ashley said. "If there's just no way to reconcile the uncertainty and find a way to have a common good and have some sort of public understanding…If we as a community can't come together and find some way to share our common interests, then these things should die."

"But we're doing that," said Hayward. "By voting this thing in at $17,000 plus ten percent, we're doing that."

"I don't need this [project]," said Hayward, who chaired the now-disbanded policy committee. " I've got a Title V system that's fine. I'm doing this because there's a common good. I'm giving $17,000 of my money to do something that isn't going to benefit me. I'm OK with that, but I want to know that I'm done. I want to know it's capped and…that's the limit of my social responsibility."

Only five town center residents attended the meeting. In addition to Bragan and Ashley, selectmen Tim Clark, Peter Warren and Ron Ricci were also present.

"People are just gone," said Kyle Hedrick, of Fairbank Street, who said he learned of the meeting late Thursday last week in an email from Bragan. "It's just staggering that with these amounts of money, a greater effort isn't being made [by Town Hall] to inform residents."

Earlier on Monday, four of Harvard's selectmen met and said they would back the warrant to borrow the additional needed to lay a sewer in the center of town and renovate the failed wastewater treatment plant on Massachusetts Avenue. Chairman Marie Sobalvarro was absent and a formal vote was postponed until Thursday morning, but the "sense of the meeting," said acting chairman Bill Johnson, was "favorable." The capital and finance committees will meet Wednesday to consider the request.

But the final decision is up to Town Meeting attendees, who will convene Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Bromfield Auditorium to hear the project's pros and cons and to cast their votes.

Contacted by phone Tuesday, Hayward said he and Salter hoped to present an amendment at Town Meeting on Thursday, but were uncertain how to proceed.