By Kayla Pickrell
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications
Several landowners' recent water leaks spiked their bills, and that sparked
debate on how to adjust the bill-adjustment ordinance at the Midway
City Council’s special meeting Tuesday afternoon.
Council Member Aaron Hamilton said one of the bills
with a leak on the property was $1,500.
To catch leaks earlier and head off large adjustments, the
council decided unanimously to read water meters twice a month, rather than the
monthly readings already in effect. That won’t cost more, since meters are now
read by radio.
“This is paying attention when there are high readings,”
Council Member Sara Hicks said, “and helping people get them fixed as quickly
as possible.”
Although nothing was set in stone, the council talked about
doing weekly readings during cold weather to proactively catch leaks before
they become a bigger problem. “It doesn’t need to be a policy, just a procedure,” Hamilton
said.
Along with conducting readings twice a month, Council Member
Dan Roller suggested training people to do the readings to make the process
faster. Only one city employee now conducts the readings.
Mayor Tom Bozarth said, “We want to have a way where we can
work with people the best we can.”
The council is looking to change the water and sewer
ordinance of 2003, which allows bill adjustments only to those on the sewer
system. Some farms are on city water but not sewer.
“What we’re talking about really is suggesting that we
change the policy for those who don’t have sewer,” said Council Member Grayson
Vandegrift.
The council appeared to agree that adjustments would be
allowed once every 12 months if proper documentation was provided regarding
information about the leak on the property. The adjustment would be based upon
the average water bill from six months prior to the leak.
“At the very least, you’d want to determine the cause of the
leak and the wear of the system,” City Attorney Phil Moloney said.
Roller suggested that the city put the cause of the leak at
the top of the list, as long as the leak was fixed. “It would be a nightmare to try to determine why they are
having water loss,” he said.
Shepard is looking over figures from the past water bills to
bring to the next council meeting to help members make a decision on the
ordinance, Bozarth said.
The council will meet again Monday, March 3 at 5:30 p.m.
Here's a video of most of the hour-long meeting, starting about 13 minutes in:
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