Vienna Water Suit on Hold

The Town of Vienna has set aside a lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors over water rates as the county, its water authority and neighboring Falls Church enter talks about a possible merger of their systems.

The Town of Vienna, along with two other Fairfax County municipalities in a power grab with the county on water rates, has agreed to put the litigation on hold for 90 days, town spokeswoman Kirstyn Barr said.

The decision came the night before officials were set to face off in federal court in Alexandria, according to the Washington Post, and less than a month before the ordinance that prompted the suits takes effect.

The town's suit, filed March 9 in Fairfax County Circuit Court, The ordinance gave the county the power to approve or reject the rates municipalities charge to customers outside their corporate limits.

The Vienna suit cites state law that says municipalities, who have operated water services outside of its boundaries before July 1, 1976, can set its fees without consent of the overarching jurisdiction.

Since March, during several work sessions and public hearings, Town Manager Mercury Payton and other town officials .

"The Town of Vienna is committed to providing quality water and dedicated service delivery and will continue to make reasonable efforts to reduce costs for Town of Vienna water customers," Barr said Friday.

Though the town has decided against , they have not ruled out leaving the water business.

"We're looking to make sure it remains solvent," said Payton at a hearing in April, when he noted the town came into this fiscal year with a deficit in the water and sewer fund. "We do have a long-term concern that if this is going to be a trend ... we’re looking as a town to see what we should do with the water sewer system, but we are very concerned, as you are, about where this is going."

Earlier this year, the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church filed similar legal actions against the supervisors, saying the county did not have the authority to take the responsibility of overseeing a water system away from a separate jurisdiction. 

Vienna has operated its water system since 1947, before the Fairfax Water utility was created, Mayor Jane Seeman told the supervisors in December. Today it has 9,000 customer accounts, with nearly 40 percent of them outside the town's municipal borders. Unlike Falls Church or Fairfax City, Vienna has no independent water supply; the town buys its water from the Falls Church at a rate higher than the one the county pays for its own water. 

"Despite the Town's established record of providing quality water service to residents of the Town and portions of unincorporated Fairfax County adjoining the Town at fair and reasonable rates, the Board, which provides no water service to the residents of the unincorporated Fairfax County, recently attempted to override and modify the Town's contracts with the Town's customers within Fairfax County," the suit says.

The Fairfax County Consumer Protection Commission also reported to the supervisors in 2010 that Vienna's water rates are below the state average, according to the suit.

Some of the out-of-town properties Vienna services have been connected to the town's system at the request of Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Water Authority because neither could provide water service to these customers, the suit says; neither Fairfax County nor Fairfax Water has ever formally requested to provide service to any of the town's customers, and Vienna customers are not eligible to become Fairfax Water customers because they have not paid a "capacity buy in" fee.

The ordinance also violates the due process of law, the suit says, because it attempts to regulate some water services but not those of Fairfax Water.

The suit also takes issue with how the ordinance amendments were adopted.

Vienna Patch will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.