The City Council met in special session on February 10, 2020 at 5:00 P.M. in the Council Chambers of City Hall.
Mayor Lester presided
Councilmembers present:
Mike Peterson
Scott Winkler
Beryl Grant
Pete Lane
Dylan Canaday
Amy Farris
City employees present were Public Works Director Mager and City Administrator Kennedy.
Mayor Lester called the meeting to order to discuss water and sewer billing and rates.
SEWER RATE – FULL RATE VS 2/3S RATE: Administrator Kennedy provided a spreadsheet of various residential and commercial users for the Council to compare how base sewer rates would change when charging all extra units as a full sewer compared to the existing 2/3s sewer. Some commercial and mixed-use facilities were listed to reflect how a calculated ER (equivalent residence) affected various accounts.
The Council reviewed sewer base rates and discussed whether a full sewer should be charged for every unit on an account, compared to being charged 2/3s the rate after the first unit. The Council felt accounts should pay a full sewer for every units. Residential housing will be billed by the number of housing units. Commercial accounts will have the number of units determined by an ER that uses an average of winter consumption. The ER will be rounded up to the nearest tenth. For example, 1.68 ER will round to 1.7 ER. A new ER will be calculated annually.
BONDS: The units for any future bonds will be determined during the bonding process. Residential will pay per housing unit and commercial will pay based on ER. When the number of units are determined, those units will stay on the account for the duration of the bond.
EQUITY BUY IN: As previously discussed, the Council chose to move forward with one buy in per structure. In drafting the ordinance, an ER will need to be defined as per structure. The Council felt a structure needed to be a continuation of the building. The foundations of living spaces need to abut each other. A garage, carport or breezeway would not connect two structures and make them one structure.
SERVICE DISCONNECTION: As an ordinance is drafted, it needs to address you can’t choose to disconnect water but keep sewer. Water and Sewer are required in the City. An irrigation only account could be kept in place.
Kennedy will work with attorney Green to revise the buy in ordinance first and then work on the water and sewer rate revision.
The meeting adjourned at 7:10 P.M.
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Wes Lester – Mayor
ATTEST:
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Tonya Kennedy – Clerk
