Mayor Brian Lewis, during the Dec. 19 City Council meeting, initiated a discussion about water billing rates, proposing that perhaps the council reconsider different options.
City Administrator/Recorder Molly McGuire put forth an idea to reduce the $47 base-rate allotted gallons from 2,500 to 2,000.
“Our combined wells on average can consistently produce 2,000 gallons per meter throughout a year,” she said. “With that, the suggestion is to drop the customer basic service charge from 2,500 gallons down to 2,000 gallons while keeping the minimum amount the same during non-restriction and restriction seasons.”
After that, there would be one flat charge per gallon over that base usage, at four cents per gallon during non-restriction season, and nine cents per gallon during restriction season.
Council and staff noted that currently the city is charging customers less than the city is actually paying for water. McGuire anticipates that with her proposal the city could build up a small reserve that would help pay for repairs.
Mayor Lewis added his idea to the table. He noted the City of Lebanon just added an $18 city service fee to each home’s utility bill. He suggested Sodaville perhaps add a $10 charge on bills to be socked away for maintenance costs. He likes the 2,500 gallon base rate usage because many residents seem to stay right within that rate.
Anyone using between 2,501 and 7,500 gallons would pay three cents per gallon during non-restriction and four cents per gallon during restriction. He later added that one of his concerns centers around those who use thousands of gallons per month who might not be paying their fair share while other families work hard to conserve water; plus, he doesn’t want to see everyone’s bills double.
Councilman Joseph Parsons said he was thinking of a plan to charge $50 for the first 2,000 gallons. After that, rates would go up, but he didn’t outline his plan in detail during this meeting. His desire, he explained, is to build up a buffer of cash during non-restriction so that the city has the funds to pay for water purchased from Lebanon during the restriction season.
“It’s all gonna take some give-and-take, some ideas and what’s acceptable,” Parsons said. “We don’t want our constituents to hate us, but everything else in the world is going up and everything in our system is starting to fail.”
Councilman Adina Olivares said she prefers the 2,000-gallon base rate.
“We’re a small town that has four struggling wells, sometimes five,” Olivares said. “We don’t have any other revenue coming in other than that.”
McGuire noted this is just the beginning of a months-long conversation, and she welcomed input and ideas from the council, as well as the public. The council agreed to bring their ideas to the conversation next month
In other business:
- McGuire noted that the water hauling bill for November was $24,747.82.
- McGuire informed the council that she is preparing to put out a request for proposals for a CPA firm. Given that the city’s expenditures are under a certain threshold, Sodaville can do its end of year auditing through what’s called an “agreed upon procedure,” which ultimately forgoes a full audit will save the city a significant amount of money.
- McGuire announced there were some write-ins on this year’s ballots for a city councilor position. One of the write-ins turned down the opportunity, but the other, Caleb Gay, who received three write-ins, expressed interest in the position. The council interviewed Gay during the meeting and he is expected to be sworn-in during January.
- Public Works Director J D Burns announced the reservoir is near-full at 28 feet (out of 30). On a bad note, however, the sensor on the reservoir broke down. He explained that without the sensor, the wells won’t turn on. Burns found a work-around by turning the wells on manually, but then he has to turn them off every night to be sure the reservoir doesn’t overfill. McGuire will check to see if any grants can cover the cost to repair the sensor.
- Burns reported a federally-funded group that was helping Habitat for Humanity on their Sodavill property also offered to fell some dead trees and limbs, as well as some poison oak, for the city.
- Burns reported West View Drive, a private public road, has cracked and needs sealing before potholes become an issue. However, since it’s not a city-owned public road, it’s not the city’s responsibility to fix it. Burns would like to look into the possibility of making it a public road, though, to help.