The village board voted unanimously for the increases and took public comment on Local Laws 5 and 6 in July, while a State Street main break underlined why the system needs the money.
Water and sewer bills in Port Byron will each carry a $10 increase when October statements reach the Cayuga County village’s 1,101 residents, the final stretch of a rate action that Mayor Ronald Wilson and the Board of Trustees advanced across three spring meetings and noticed for a July 13 public hearing on the two local laws that carry the new charges.
This story came from public records we pulled ourselves
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The money question has followed the village all summer. One day after that hearing, a water main broke on State Street and sent discolored water into household taps, according to a notice posted on the village website July 15. The board is paying off a bond early to stop interest from accruing, courting grant writers for new water meters and a sewer plant generator, and mailing an explanation letter with the next round of water bills. All of it lands in the same season the village’s signature attraction, the Old Erie Canal Heritage Park at Lock 52, marks ten years since opening.
Two $10 increases, three meetings in the making
The rate action moved in careful steps. On May 29, trustees voted 4 to 0 on a motion by Deputy Mayor Jeff Girvin, seconded by Trustee Patrick Fenton, to set a public hearing on possible water and sewer rate increases, according to the meeting minutes signed by the village clerk.
The decisive vote came June 8. Wilson explained the water and sewer rate increases and the reasons behind them, then asked for a motion to raise each rate by ten dollars. Trustee John Bell made the motion to increase water and sewer rates ten dollars each for the October water bills, Trustee Mary Jump seconded, and the board passed it 5 to 0 with all four trustees and the mayor present, the minutes show.
On June 22, the board tied off the public process. Wilson said a letter of information about the water and sewer rates will be included with water bills, per that meeting’s minutes. A public hearing notice posted on the village website lists Local Laws 5 and 6, the water and sewer rate laws, for July 13, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. That is the board’s regular slot: trustees meet at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of every month at the municipal building at 52 Utica Street, with a fourth Monday session as needed, according to the village’s boards and commissions page.
For a household connected to both services, the two increases add $20 to an October bill. The village has not published the full new rate schedule online, and the text of Local Laws 5 and 6 had not been posted to the village’s local laws page as of August 6.
Why the mayor says costs are climbing
Wilson gave trustees a cost picture at the June 8 meeting before the vote. He walked the board through the Auburn water system, its rates, employees and those licensed for the village, the minutes state. Port Byron does not treat its own drinking water supply; when the State Street main broke in July, the village directed residents with questions to the Cayuga County Water Authority office in Auburn at 315-252-0920.
Wilson also explained the cost of removing and transferring the sludge in the tank at the sewer plant, according to the same minutes. Sludge hauling is one of the recurring expenses that small sewer systems cannot defer, and it lands on a rate base of roughly 1,100 people spread across 0.91 square miles of village.
The board is not relying on rates alone. At the June 22 meeting, trustees voted 4 to 0 to approve a meeting with the grant writers from G & G on the meters and the generator for the sewer plant. New meters tighten billing accuracy, and a generator would keep the treatment plant running through an outage. In the same meeting, Wilson explained a bond issue and reported he had spoken with a bank manager about paying the remainder of the bond to avoid interest. Girvin moved to use fund balance, amend the budget, and pay the balance on the bond, and the motion carried 4 to 0.
A main break the day after the hearing
The system made its own argument on July 14. In a notice posted July 15, the village reported a water main break on State Street the previous day and warned residents, in the notice’s words, you may see your water discolored.
The break was patched into a summer already thick with water business. Back on May 7, the village put property owners on notice that water and sewer bills left unpaid for the billing year from July 1, 2025 through April 30, 2026 would be added to village tax bills after 4:30 p.m. that day, a routine but pointed reminder that utility debt in Port Byron does not disappear, it moves to the tax roll.
Smaller housekeeping has moved through the same meetings. On June 8, trustees approved a request from Jackie Coyle of DePaul, relayed by email, to allow overnight street parking on one side of the street up to the stop sign while the organization’s parking lot is paved, a 5 to 0 vote. On May 29, the board updated the village fee schedule for demolition, new commercial construction, wood stove and residential heating units, fire inspection and solar arrays, and it authorized Village Clerk Patricia Ewald and Treasurer Jamie Lee to attend a capital project guidance session in Groton on June 23.
The same summer, Lock 52 turns ten
The rate votes are the unglamorous half of Port Byron’s 2026. The other half sits just outside the village center along the Thruway, where the Old Erie Canal Heritage Park is marking the 10th anniversary of its 2016 opening, and doing it with a new permanent centerpiece.
On May 9, the Canal Society of New York State dedicated the Lois McClure, a replica of a 19th century canal schooner, inside the park’s 1853 Enlarged Erie Canal Lock 52, with a 1:30 p.m. ceremony at the park and daylong programming at the Samuel Center for Canal History on Rochester Street, according to Fingerlakes1.com. The vessel had traveled the canal system as a floating classroom since 2004. The vision of a canal boat in the former canal prism within the park is now a reality with the help of generous contributors, dedicated volunteers, partners and talented professionals, Canal Society President Captain Tammee Poinan Grimes said in the announcement.
The schooner’s new berth is getting state support too. In February, the NYS Canal Corporation and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor announced 2026 canal tourism grants totaling $207,953 to 41 nonprofits and municipalities, with individual awards between $500 and $24,000. The Canal Society’s award will fund two exterior weather resistant interpretive signs alongside the Lois McClure at Port Byron, explaining the boat’s history and its working life on the canal. The awards are expected to draw an estimated $808,104 in additional matching support, and the program, now in its fifth year, has put roughly $1 million into canal corridor amenities and events to date. Canal Corporation Director Ben Walsh framed the round as an accessibility push as the canal begins its third century of operation.
The park itself is a 20 year project of the Canal Society, founded in 1956, and it earns its visitors. Lock 52, built in 1853 with 200 feet of laid stone, anchored a complex listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The restored 1894 Erie House tavern and hotel, a mule barn and a blacksmith shop round out the site at 1575 Rooker Drive, open May 1 through October 31 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the visitor center holds an 1893 large scale lock model among its canal artifacts. The Society raised several million dollars to complete the park while the Thruway Authority funded the access ramps, parking lots and related work, according to the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. The result draws tens of thousands of visitors a year; in 2019, patrons came from every state and 60 countries, helped by a dedicated eastbound access ramp from the Thruway between exits 40 and 41.
A canal village since 1825
Port Byron has been balancing canal glory and utility bills for two centuries. Settlers arrived around 1797, the hamlet was first called King’s Settlement, then Bucksville after early mill owner Aholiab Buck, and it took the name Port Byron in 1825 as the Erie Canal turned it into a boomtown with the Howard House hotel, a theater, a train station and a mill, according to the village’s own history page. Mule drawn canal boats hauled wood, metals and goods past the docks. Brigham Young lived and worked here as a painter and builder in the early 1830s, and so did Henry Wells, later of Wells Fargo fame. The village incorporated in 1837. In 1917 the state rerouted the canal to the Seneca River, and the boats stopped coming through the middle of town.
Today the village sits at the junction of Routes 31 and 38 with a population the 2020 census put at 1,101, down from about 1,290 counted in 2010. It is a small rate base carrying a full service municipal water and sewer plant obligation, which is the arithmetic behind the October increase.
Residents who want to weigh in before the new bills land have one more scheduled chance this month. The board’s regular second Monday calendar puts the next meeting on Monday, August 10 at 7 p.m. at 52 Utica Street, and the October water bills, each carrying $10 more for water and $10 more for sewer, go out roughly seven weeks after that.
Sources & Verification
Village of Port Byron Board of Trustees meeting minutes, May 29, June 8 and June 22, 2026, posted at portbyronvillage.org (Minutes page: https://portbyronvillage.org/?page_id=8). Village of Port Byron posted notices: public hearing on Local Laws 5 and 6 (https://portbyronvillage.org/public-hearing/), water main break information (https://portbyronvillage.org/water-main-break-information/), delinquent account notice (https://portbyronvillage.org/attention-residents/). Village boards and commissions page (https://portbyronvillage.org/?page_id=157) and village history page (https://portbyronvillage.org/?page_id=159). Fingerlakes1.com, April 29 and May 7, 2026, on the Lois McClure dedication and park 10th anniversary (https://www.fingerlakes1.com/2026/05/07/replica-canal-schooner-to-be-dedicated-at-port-byron-heritage-park-this-weekend/). NYS Canal Corporation and Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor 2026 tourism grants news release, February 26, 2026 (https://eriecanalway.org). Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Port Byron case study (https://eriecanalway.org/find-resources/case-studies/port-byron). Canal Society of New York State heritage park page (https://newyorkcanals.org/the-heritage-park). NYS Thruway Authority heritage park page (https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/park-rest-areas/port-byron-old-erie-canal-heritage-park). US Census figures via Wikipedia, Port Byron, New York. Reporter: Matt Keenan. Edited by: the CNY Signal news team. Published: August 6, 2026.
