Franklin will treat sewage from county residents

Thank you, Mayor Schroer!

Franklin will treat sewage from county residents

FRANKLIN -- Franklin leaders have agreed spend an undetermined amount of money to upgrade the city's sewer system in order to treat the sewage of about 450 Grassland homeowners.

Aldermen voted 5-2 to approve a contract between the city and Williamson County that will finalize a plan that’s taken years to approve and has raised concern among a few aldermen.
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As part of the contract, the city will take on treatment chores for county homeowners who have failing septic systems in four subdivisions. In exchange, the county will reimburse the city for its expenses. To date, the county has reportedly spent nearly $2 million the project thus far.

Initially, the city’s contract set a fixed price of $750,000 as a limit for how much Franklin would spend but Mayor John Schroer removed any set price.

“I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to (risk anything),” Schroer said.

The contract will next be approved by county leaders early next year.

The affected homes are in the Meadowgreen, Hillsboro Acres, Brownwood and Farmington subdivisions which are outside Franklin’s city limits and outside the city’s urban growth boundary. They will not be annexed into the city.

While the project has support from Schroer and most of the aldermen, Aldermen Dan Klatt and Mike Skinner voted against the contract.

Klatt wanted the county to give Franklin planning control over development in the city’s urban growth boundary – land set aside for future city annexation. But that never came to fruition.

“It’s not if, it’s when,” Klatt said about the septic systems. “As I’ve said for years, we need to have better jurisdictional control over our planning issues.”

Skinner had the contract amended twice but eventually voted against it.

As part of the agreement, homeowners who want sewer service must install a sewage grinder pump, pay the monthly electric cost to operate the pump and pay city tap and inspection fees. Costs of those expenses are not spelled out in the contract.