EDGERTON TO CHURCH: “JUST PAY IT”

A sec­ond appeal by a local church to the Edger­ton Vil­lage Coun­cil request­ing relief from a fee, brought no results Mon­day evening.

Rev. Rick Bar­nett, lead pas­tor of the Edger­ton United Methodist Church, along with sev­eral parish­ioners, appeared before coun­cil to request a waiver of a $50 per month fee the church is now being charged.

It was the same request he made at the Novem­ber 4th meet­ing. He got the same answer… no.

The Edger­ton Methodist Church was destroyed by a fire in 2012, and is cur­rently being rebuilt. A new state-of-the-art fire sup­pres­sion sys­tem in the church has resulted in a monthly up size fee on the water tap, which has gone from 2 to 6 inches.

Accord­ing to the Bryan Times, the mayor already explained that coun­cil had dis­cussed it and had decided not to waive the fee. The mayor told Rev­erend Bar­nett that waiv­ing it for the church would set a prece­dent. The fee sched­ule is $25 for a 4-inch line, $50 for a 6-inch and $75 for an 8-inch line, and those fees were being paid by other enti­ties accord­ing to the mayor.

Mean­while, Rev­erend Bar­nett argues that the church is a not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion, and he asked coun­cil to vote on the issue.

Coun­cil decided that there was no need to vote, since the deci­sion had been made last week, mean­ing the church will have to pay up.