Jamestown Board of Public Utilities board votes on annexation litigation settlement (April 22, 2024)
The litigation regarding the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities Annexation of the Dow Street Substation is coming to an end.
The BPU Board approved a settlement agreement at its monthly meeting Monday that will now go to the town of Ellicott, village of Falconer, and Falconer Central School District for their acceptance.
Under the settlement, there will be a 20% reduction in the assessed value of the Dow Street Substation property that will last ten years. The property is currently assessed at $6,592,856. The reduced assessment will be$5,274,284.
Also as part of the settlement, the City of Jamestown will agree to discontinue its annexation proceedings.
The City of Jamestown began the effort to annex a piece of property in the Town of Ellicott/Village of Falconer that contains the BPU’s Electric Division substation, known as the Dow Street Substation in 2017. Former Mayor Sam Teresi said then that because a portion of that property is adjacent to the city border, it made it eligible for annexation under state law, so long as the city can legally show just cause.
The BPU recommended the city consider the annexation as a way to help save money– because the city, through the BPU, pays more than $320,000 annually in property taxes to the Town of Ellicott, Village of Falconer, Falconer School District and Chautauqua County. If the property had been annexed and included in the city, Teresi said the BPU would have saved around $162,000 a year – because the BPU would make tax equivalency payments to both the city and Jamestown school district.
Ellicott and Falconer officials opposed the annexation, taking it to court in 2017, where it as gone through various appeals. The last known action by the courts was in 2022 when the Fourth State Appellate Court ruled that the property met state law requirements for annexation. The Appellate Court sent the matter back to Chautauqua County State Supreme Court where a referee panel was to hear the case.
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