HOBOKEN -- Members of the City Council want to know how Hoboken racked up an $8.3 million bill from Suez Water over the past three years for work on the city's aging pipes, with some accusing Mayor Dawn Zimmer of hiding the debt to avoid raising taxes in what began for her as an election year.

Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, who chairs the council's finance and revenue committee, had a resolution drafted creating a special committee to investigate the Suez issue, which was initially placed on the agenda for Tuesday night's meeting.

But Fisher, who said she was acting on behalf of several council members who shared her concerns, said she had the resolution withdrawn after deciding to take a less "aggressive" approach. Instead, Fisher said she would await a response from the Zimmer administration explaining why the debt was never addressed in city budgets.

"I think a better starting point is just to try to understand it," Fisher said on Tuesday afternoon, several hours ahead of the meeting, when Fisher said the council was not scheduled to officially address the Suez matter.

Councilman Michael DeFusco, who is running to replace Zimmer as mayor, has taken a more aggressive approach. DeFusco asked the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs investigate why Zimmer allowed the debt to accumulate while failing to account for it in her past three municipal budgets.

"Current liabilities such as this debt to Suez must by law be budgeted each year in order to pass a constitutionally-mandated balanced budget," DeFusco wrote in a Sept. 7 letter to DCA Director Timothy Cunningham."It appears that this has not happened in Hoboken over the last three years."

A spokeswoman for the DCA, Tammori Petty, said in an email that the department had received DeFusco's letter and, "as we typically do when a matter of alleged financial impropriety is brought to our attention -- reached out to the city for additional information."

"We have no further comment," Petty added.

A spokesman for Zimmer, Juan Melli, said Suez had never sent the city a bill for the maintenance work, which he said would be formally itemized once the new contract was approved and its provisions finalized.

"They have never submitted any invoices," Melli said in an email. As for the city's failure to budget for the mounting debt, he added, "The strategy has been to incorporate these unfair costs into a renegotiated contract."

A spokeswoman for Suez did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Zimmer first called attention to the Suez maintenance debt two months ago, when she outlined terms of a renegotiated contract with Suez in July, in a new deal she said would mean a net savings to taxpayers of $40 million through the end of the new deal in 2034. The council has not approved the new deal, however.

Zimmer said that savings would be realized in two basic ways: retroactively, in the forgiveness of $10 million owed to the company, including the accrued maintenance bill now at issue; and in future years, when Suez would be obligated to absorb $1.8 million a year in repair costs rather than the maximum of $350,000 in annual repairs the company is obligated to pay for under the current contract. The deal also grants Suez rate increases of about 2 percent a year for seven years starting in 2018.

DeFusco is one of three council members now running to succeed Zimmer in Hoboken's Nov. 7 non-partisan elections, along with Councilman Ravi Bhalla and Council President Jennifer Giattino. The mayoral race also includes Freeholder Anthony Romano, plus local restaurateur Karen Nason and cycling activist Ronal Bautista.

Councilman David Mello, who is running for re-election to his at-large council seat on Romano's slate, weighed in on Facebook, insisting Tuesday that the council should not rush to approve the new Suez contract simply because it's better than the bad deal in place now. "To say that I should vote for this contract extension because it is an improvement, is not saying much at all," Mello stated.

Zimmer addressed the council on the Suez issue at its Sept. 6 meeting, urging members to approve the deal or say just why they were opposed to it.

"I am here to urge you to put politics aside and give honest and fair consideration to the proposed renegotiated contract with Suez Water," Zimmer told the council. "Simply saying 'I have concerns' or 'this agreement isn't good enough', or that 'Mayor Zimmer is a lame duck who should no longer be permitted to do her job as mayor,' is not fair to the public that we serve and does not provide the information needed to consider next steps."

Zimmer had presented her most recent budget to the council in March, while she was still widely anticipated to seek re-election, and two weeks later Zimmer was endorsed by state senator, Union City mayor and Hudson County power broker Brian Stack.

The $113 million spending plan, later adopted by the council, did not include the Suez maintenance debt. It did project a property tax cut amounting to $31 for the average homeowner.

But in June, Zimmer shook the local political landscape by announcing she would not seek a third four-year term, saying she preferred to join the broader fight against climate change after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

DeFusco now says the mayor's omission of the Suez debt from her tax-cutting budget, in conjunction with the renegotiated contract to wipe clean the debt, were parts of a Zimmer scheme to win re-election.

"It is becoming more and more clear that the root of this mess was Mayor Zimmer's intent to try and take this debt off the books through a hasty and ill-planned restructuring of the city's contract with Suez so she could claim a tax cut for residents going into an election year," DeFusco stated.

Zimmer released a statement in response to DeFusco's assertion, lamenting that the renegotiated contract was being politicized.

"While this isn't completely unexpected, it saddens me that our residents and taxpayers are collateral damage," Zimmer stated.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.