ELLICOTT — Further negotiations between the city of Jamestown and the town of Ellicott became the focus of Monday’s board meeting. For the past nine months, the Ellicott town council has attempted to persuade Jamestown city council to rework their water system in order to provide clean city water to Fluvanna Avenue.

An agreement was nearly reached last month until Jamestown sent back a highly revised set of paperwork, filled with changes Ellicott had not agreed to. The current goal is to again meet with Jamestown to see if compromises can be made and accepted.

“I’m willing to go back,” said Town Supervisor Patrick McLaughlin, who expressed his interest in going back to the table. “We are done making concessions. We have given up a lot to get that water to Fluvanna Avenue.”

Residents of the town of Ellicott would pay 200 percent of the city cost for water as other municipalities like Lakewood, Busti and North Harmony do if the city of Jamestown were to agree to Ellicott’s ideas. Specifically, a joint intermunicipal grant application was introduced so that Ellicott could receive needed municipal water and Jamestown could upgrade their water lines and provide maintenance.

According to McLaughlin, Jamestown agreed to the 200 percent charge and revenue sharing on commercial growth on Fluvanna Avenue for 10 years, an unprecedented offer. However, the potential agreement came back to Ellicott with numerous changes that had not been discussed and were not in Ellicott’s favor.

If an agreement is not reached soon, the water and sewer negotiations revert back to the 1987 agreement.

“We need water over there for us to grow,” McLaughlin said.

In other town news, certified code enforcement officer Mike Gleason is going to be hired part-time by the codes department in order to inspect Ellicott businesses, commercially and industrially, as each business is expected to be inspected annually.

“I truly think, even part-time, Mike will stay busy for a year,” McLaughlin said.

Furthermore, there has been no request for a reassessment of the former Sam’s Club property, which now sits empty and still collects property taxes for Ellicott. There is a possibility that the property may soon be listed nationally for sale. The town board will be notified of further developments.

Ellicott has seen multiple business closures this year, including Sam’s Club, which has impacted the town significantly.

“The hardest thing is people are losing employees,” McLaughlin said.

There are also no funding updates regarding herbicide treatment of Chautauqua Lake on the town’s behalf. The Chautauqua Lake Partnership requested $33,000 plus the initial $2,500 that was spent.

“We didn’t have it. We never budgeted that kind of money,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin urges the state of New York to take more responsibility in treating the lake’s problems of weeds and algal blooms.