4.3.2024 City Council - Committee on Ordinances and Legislation

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heyyy ordinance and legislation come to order the clerk will call a role here here here couns here here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the medium through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings and Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by by those present and are

deemed acknowledgeable and permissible the first item on the agenda is citizen imput uh we have three people that signed up Nelson

Vasquez hello everybody hello how are you before I begin I should have done this uh spoke I printed out some things for you guys just

um you know uh you know two years ago uh the city was talking about investing 10 to I think it was 13 to6 million to ease Water and Sewer rates um just two years ago but for me now that there's no more op money left I see that with the presentation that we witnessed at the last meeting they're saying that no matter how much water you use you're still going to pay more and the chart

showed that the city as a whole is using less water so I I took delibery of doing some research into the town of Welsley and you know they got it uh it's for DPW here it's about uh about 10 questions and you know you guys can read them but the ones that I found fascinating was uh number two says what can I do to lower your water bill and it says the most effective way to lower

your water bill is to use less water and then um for number four it says when was the last water rate increase now the print is a little messed up CU I did it from the library was July of 2011 and then number five you know when is the next water rate increase and they're saying that there's not only is there no additional water rate increase but it's dependent heavily on

this year's water use and if you go down to number eight you know when was the last sewer rate increase was um July of 2020 so my thing is is that you know here we have proposed water rates uh the city is trying to put in through the increases as a whole this community will not be able to pay those water rates and here we have a city here with a lower

population using less water and they haven't seen increases in years so my my thing is you know the city to me is trying to use the water usage here as a business as a revenue stream and to me that's wrong especially when we sell water to other communities at lower rates so my thing is is that you know the residents is not being heard what's being proposed is absurd and you

know and historically since the city is late in paying their bills you know what ha what would happen if the if the residents decided to revolt against these proposed increases and pay their water bills just 30 or 60 days late we all know what would happen Citywide I guess that's the only way for them to be heard so my thing is is that when you have lower rates like this and

the thing is is that a town like this can afford even though they can afford the proposed increases for Fall River even they are not only using less water but they're not paying any increases and they haven't seen any increases in years so I think what's what's being proposed needs to really be thoroughly looked at because this city just cannot afford to absorb these costs that's coming down thank you Nelson all

right one of the things I will add yeah the city does sell water but we don't sell water lower to anybody cheaper to anybody else well I'm just I'm just saying like if it did you know to other communities if it's lower then at Le we sold more water it just makes no sense to to have the residents pay more for the same resource that they have you

know at a higher rate and the thing is I end with this is that think about this if every household didn't use not one drop of water in a household throughout the entire year and then given what's being proposed you're still going to pay more how does that make any sense it just it doesn't so I'm urging hopefully you know you guys can look at and vote down these proposals because the city will not be

able to absorb them thank you thank Nelson thank you the next person on citizen input time is Edward ailla and Mr rilla is talking about constables he is a constable and has been a constable for a lot of years how many over 30 they're over 30 years um but um almost almost wasn't yeah well good day everyone hello my name is Edward ailla I have done public service for 50 plus years 18 years as a

lieutenant 18 years as a lieutenant on the rescue one fire department and I've done over 30 years as a celor in Bristol County now it's my belief that I believe the city counselors who have a bigger number than only one like the mayor he's the one and I don't know if it's in the charter if that has to be changed or if it's in a statue um I think the counselors have

more people and better input than just one person like the mayor what happened to me with mayor jel carea was that I worked politically against him and when it came time to get my license he didn't give it to me and uh it got resolved but uh you feel like you're slighted after all those years so I wanted to bring it in front of the council I thought the council May uh

find out if it has to be in the charter or if they have to change the statute or whatever they have to do but I believe that the city council should be the ones to say a yes or a no and that's why I'm here thank you Mr ailla thank you thank you thank you very much the next person for citizen input Carlo Caesar on Water and Sewer good afternoon counselors um good

afternoon the reason I'm here and if if you has asked me about the the water department I will say three years ago I will have a total different opinion of the water department and the way it's run after um Mr Paul showed me the facilities and give me the tour about all the the water department actually Chang my opinion and a lot of things when it comes down to water department

and and raises and everything but as a taxpayer and a water uh user and um I use a lot of water my wife Lo loves plants and loves to to water plants every day so I do use a lot of water it it's two things that that I'm I'm concerned is um sure the race again and and just uh like was mentioned on the on the presentation the fact that doesn't

matter how much water you use you're going to be in I probably I don't mind to pay for the water that I use if I use a lot of water I don't mind to pay for for my water I I've been using but I'm I'm concerned for the people that don't use a lot of water had to pay the same water than everybody else so this is a concern that I have um if that if that

passes how I understand they needs more money um how they going to raise the money it's has to be a discussion and an agreement everybody has to come into an agreement um and was uh one more thing that after the presentation I went outside and I I spoke to uh Mr Paul which always return calls and everything is is excellent on that and and be on top of the the things

and answer the questions is the fact that I mentioned and I believe uh councelor um seven uh Linda Pera mentioned that it's the maintaining well as soon as the job is done we have to start all over again maintaining I do agree uh with that that needs to be maintained my thing is from the start I think this was the wrong name for this project that's number one because rain water fee you know people mention you

know the water rains it's the re why we have to pay tax all that's the beginning and when that came in front of the public for votes and and and to for agreement was the fact that we need to replace the piping so when that that piping gets replaced that means the job is done so we need to figure out when the last street is going to be done so

do we need to stay get that money coming in I agreed I don't disagree with that but we need now to change the name into a maintaining process instead of being still the same title so was we will have a beginning and the end of a project that we vote for that we agreed with so I think that's something probably that we need to uh to think about even that

like I said the money still have to come in to do the maintaining part but if we could at least separate both projects the removal of the exchange and the removal of the piping and now the maintaining of the project should be under a different a different name when that part it's done so that's my opinion thank you Mr Caesar thank you item number three on the agenda is proposed ordinances traffic

miscellaneous number two number two oh I'm sorry item number two minutes of the meeting from March 18th motion to approve there a second second all in favor I item number three proposed ordinance traffic miscellaneous handicap parking these are all removals Bert Street Cory Street Holden street Lebanon Street and Prospect Street motion to pass first reading second there's a motion in a second all in favor I item

number four is the proposed ordinance regarding Water and Sewer rates Mr furland Mr

Akin thank you very much good evening councilors um as you know at the last meeting we did a very in-depth uh discussion uh very in-depth uh presentation on uh the water rates the impact to the C customers uh and the budget uh in whole um again so the proposed for fy2 uh sewer rate is $811 uh storm water fee no change to that at $50 per in eru and then uh our water rate would be uh

$436 proposed uh and no change to the base meter fee that's all laid out within the a proposed ordinances that you have in front of you do have copies of the presentation uh I know last time I was here I didn't have copies for you so if anybody wants them I can pass them around so the water rate before was5 was $66 and it's going up $811 the sewer rate sewer rate yes

and so that's an increase of $25 per per CCF which is 748 gallons so what was the water rate because it just says 436 here so we don't have a yeah so the water rate was 377 per CCF it's an increase of 59 cents per CCF

um you know if you'd like uh we can open it up to any questions again uh the presentation that we made kind of went over uh to the uh committee on finance went went over rates as well uh if there's any specific questions about the rates or the budgets Council Samson has a question what would the ramification be if we didn't approve this so again the problem is uh not approving the

rates we would not be able to support our budget um that means a couple of different things uh potentially uh if the budgets were approved because they kind of take a separate separate track than the rates if the budgets were approved uh and the rates to support those were not uh then we would it would be on the general fund to make up the difference which I don't think is a good

idea now again general fund can support an Enterprise fund but that doesn't make a self-sufficient Enterprise fund you cannot take money from the Enterprise fund and use it to support the general fund unless it is for an indirect or direct cost directly related to the Enterprise fund activity so we have indirect cost that we pay back to the general fund for services that they provide us that's a line item within the

budget uh and then a lot of things that we direct pay uh that doesn't go through the general fund um so the general fund would need to be make up the difference or we would have to have drastic cuts that would definitely put us in violations of our state federal permits anybody else have any questions Council reposa sorry just a a quick question was we had a question the other day about the

possibility of a performance audit did you make any Headway on that at all uh I have I've reached out to a couple of companies that do that type of work to uh look what estimates would be that would have to go out probably through an RFQ process for the full so it's something that I am working on trying to get together excellent again I think it I think that's an excellent idea to be

able to do something like that uh come in take a look at our whole entire department see if there are any efficiencies uh that could be observed that are overse by myself and my staff excellent I thank you Mr Fen when uh councelor Samson asked about if this doesn't pass where you get money from how much money would that be from the general fund so again if there was uh if

there was no rate increase uh you would take uh this year's proposed sewer budget which is 31 m78 th100 uh and then you subtract last year's uh which was 27 million if you want I can do the actual math out yeah yeah three and a half four million so

787 615 277 so 3 3.46 million the general fund would have to make up that's just on sewer then if you go to water 3.46 million that was Su yes 16

173 99 57 uh that's 1.37 million again I would not that would not be my recommendation because the general fund has its own um its own burdens and troubles that it needs to support uh and I don't think you know and again other communities there are a lot of communities uh throughout the state that do use the general fund to subsidize their Enterprise funds that is that is an option uh in a community like Fall

River uh I don't I don't see with the general funds budget uh and the way that we've always run our Enterprise funds I don't see that as an option a viable option we want to pursue councilor hot thank you uh Mr per um so 3.6 for the sewer and 1.37 for the water and if we do not pass this uh and pass it on to the full body it will go to um

you're saying the money will come would have to be funded through the general fund and how much is in the um I don't know off the top of my head but what's in the general fund right now that's a little bit of a moving Target counselor um I can get you that answer I I think that this would wipe out and I'm not I'm not suggesting we do that I'm just curious as to what that number

might be so this will wipe out half probably of the general fund okay um in terms of any sort of reserves that we have okay and um Paul so when you are doing budget for the water depart for the water department in sewer and water yep and you you do do these increases um what comes into play when doing that because it's see I haven't been here for

a while but when I was here um I don't know if we had these increases like like we do today and I understand why um but I I know for instance that we passed a a resolution to put new water Ms in throughout the city and it was like maybe 10 cents um a household or something like that I know that times have changed obviously but what comes what comes into your your raising the uh

the rates and how does it play into your department for that year yeah so I can go through just some of the changes in the budget from last fiscal year the current fiscal year uh into the proposed fy2 budget and I'll start off with SE if you'd like I'm sorry it wasn't five I think it was five or 10 bucks of the household s i I'm thinking about that

yep so you know again what when I when I sit down and I look at the budget it's you got to look at uh past historical expenses but then you also kind of stop from the beginning and see what it's going to take to actually support the department um within within our budgets and I have to build the revenue side of the budget which these rates are based off of as well as the expense side of

the budget so just with the revenue side of the budget starting off uh for the FY 25y year um it was decided to use uh no uh retained earnings within within the budget um last year we used uh in fy2 24 we used we plugged in 1.4 million of retained earnings uh that was certified uh we pluged that into the budget as a revenue sauce so right off the bat without even increasing my budget at all

uh we needed to make up $1.4 million with the rates um so uh from there you take a look and uh some of the cost uh that overall increased uh salaries naturally had a uh know cost of living increase uh included in there um you look at treatment plan expenses uh had uh had an increase of about 290,000 up to 345,000 for FY 25 uh that's due to uh increase of uh um some

Engineering Services for uh some ms4 and other um permit requirements that are coming out uh within FY 25 as well as some additional pfast testing that needs to be uh that will need to be done on the Wastewater and storm water side um contract Ops is one other thing that increased um everybody knows that we have the contract Ops um was out forbid um and uh sludge did not increase we're

looking at uh at level funding that from fy2 24 but electricity uh we did increase so in Su those are just some of the things the other big thing again is Debt Service um you know which you alluded to with the water main projects um you know we have a large project ongoing down at the wastewater treatment plan right now which was mandated underneath our current um Amendment with uh the federal court order as well as

our ACO with uh with EPA uh that is a uh a large construction project redoing the dewatering facilities uh and some of the other facilities down at the wastewater treatment plan so that debt service will be coming on the books next year at about $2 million a year okay all right thank you I yield you yield counc Kadeem thank you madam chairman uh just a couple of questions so when I'm looking

at the ordinance so I see the for the Wastewater we've got the Striking of $66 going to $811 um also in section two we're striking $289 going to 387 yes what is that so that's for significant industrial uses uh so that's large uses of water um and there used to be a lot of them in the city when we had a lot of the Mills running uh but that's significant L reduced now okay uh so do

you happen to and I I know we ask this question every single year and it's hard to kind of put a put your thumb on what the average water bill looks like because the usage changes but can you tell us what the impact would be roughly on the average bill yeah so um I know uh you were not at the presentation last last week but if you go into the slides

that I that I handed out um we actually broke it down this year uh and uh if you do get a chance the uh the presentation um we had a company come in uh review our budget review our rates uh and then uh work on a presentation like this so if you go to page 11 um we looked at it a couple different ways we looked at a low volume user uh so that would be

anybody under 8 CCF per quarter uh and that's uh roughly about 18% of the bills that we send out uh fall within that class uh so that may be uh you know one or two people living in a house um or you know a fixed income person that that that's looking and this is going by uh this is going by a bill this is not going by a household um so the increase

again there was two options that we looked at for uh for rate increases uh water we just have the uh the burden to be able to put on the rate um we were going to touch the base meta fee but on the Su we looked at two different options one being the uh a uh 28% increase I believe it 28% increase to uh storm water and sewer uh or the increase

uh that we proposed on just the sewer uh portion of the bill the Quantified uh amount the ray uh and so that's what the two options are option one shows if it was uh both storm water and a uh and a uh volumetric sewer fee and then option two is just based on the Vol volumetric sewer fee so the annual increase for for one of the lower use customers uh would be $87.29

128 uh per month is that that's option two though is that yes option two that's that's what we've opted to go with and then so option two is I'm sorry that's the increase to the rates and increase to just the rate not the rate not adjusting the storm water fee which is more favorable to the users that don't use as much water correct because yeah the low the lower volume users and again that that's one thing

that played into us because again we wanted to uh try to be less impactful to um you know the people that and what what about the uh the Water uh so what do we we're going up 59 cents yeah so so this shows the total impact oh that's that's water and sewer water sewer and storm water yes right um so then if you go to the next one which which is what

we always use as the average customer uh 13.25 CCF per quarter or 53 CCF per year um the increase and that's uh cumulative running up so every there's over 35% of the bills are below this uh below this number uh and that's an at annual increase of 14462 and this is the Consultants numbers um they had a little bit when they built their budget this sewer budget was a little bit higher than mine

cuz they had pay as you go so when I did my average to the average household 53 CCF I was $139.98 increase and then it goes on to a higher volume user um at uh 32 CCF per day and that's that's really getting up there uh for for use uh excuse me 32 fair to say then I guess essentially just maybe it's not a perfect example but um so essentially you could expect

an extra quarterly payment or a quarterly bill so the $87 that's probably what those low users are are getting right so they they probably get a bill about a 80 to $100 per quarter yeah about 100 120 so so you instead of getting four bills essentially if we we increase it's it's like somebody receiving five over that four period yeah yeah so yeah currently they're roughly 570 so that works up the four

quarters you're yeah 130 say that there's an extra Bill going out just in my own head I'm trying trying to quantify what that that increase really looks like um so I I guess just the question I have and I I know you had mentioned that um so a couple of questions revolving the general fund but retain earnings you mentioned 1.4 million that we've used last year yes um and I and I will say that since I've

been on the the council I've been saying warning everybody that this this day was coming and and here we are um that being said it's still still hard to swallow right because I think there's been years um going back I mean over 20 years that we've supplemented all these rates with onetime monies and it's obviously caught up um but the fact and I've been a big proponent of not using onetime money uh

but the retained earnings of the 1.4 million how much do you have left in retained earnings currently so the certified for this uh that was just certified we uh do not have any none for uh water none for sewer water has roughly about 400,000 so it's actually sure was a deficit so was a deficit so do you have so was was all you rained earnings is it just rolling over do you

not appropriate it to uh you don't have a stabilization right so it just flows back down to free cash and correct and just constantly rolls over yeah in the past we did have uh we were putting $100,000 a year within uh into stabilization um over the past couple of years we we have not done that just because of budget constraints and issues so our stabil our stabilization accounts beyond that they'll do have I

believe about 700,000 a little bit over 700,000 specific to water in sewer right okay um and then so you you said I'm sorry was 400,000 in in water second ex yeah 398,000 466 was certified within uh within water uh and $179 uh $588 was the deficit for some and so in your budget your operating budget usually we have money that going into stabilization we don't have any line item going into a stabilization account

we do have the line item going into the stabilization account uh that has not been transferred over the past couple of years due to um and that was something that we talked about um in those past years with the budget was uh chemical increases and other you know operational inre inrees that we saw you know I can tell you the past two fiscal years even though we've done great increases to

that chemical line item uh it has fallen under because the problem is I build my budget back in February we don't build you know go out to bid for chemicals till April or so uh so we don't have those exact numbers so those were uh those were much higher than what was budgeted so that's why we opted not to transfer to stabilization so my other question and and I can appreciate if you

don't have the numbers because I don't I would to anticipate that you would but do you have the historical rate increases that we've seen yes you do he's a boy scout I'm just I'm just curious to see what those rate increases look like and if you can just look at it and just eyeball like what what you think the averag is I don't need you to read them all but so the chot that I have um

then this goes back to 96 um and this includes uh this uh in proposed increase for this year uh the average over those years was 8.17 for water uh 9.69 for sewer percent yes excuse me and uh 2.48% for storm water okay and that's so if you go back over the individual years uh last year was roughly 5.6 on water uh 5.3 on uh sewer 6.3 on storm water um in uh 202

fy22 excuse me July F22 which would have been FY 23 uh 2.2% on water 1.4% on sewer uh zero on storm water um December going back uh now F uh in fy22 uh and this is one of the reasons that our this plays into one of the reasons why our um free cash certification this year was so low if you remember back uh fy22 budget um the council did not pay pass rate increases

until December um so we went six months of the year without having the proper rates to support our budget uh so that's one thing that actually affects the low free cash this year but the those rate increases when they were eventually passed were 1.75 on water 1.43% on sewer and 2.17 on storm water have them back to 96 but I don't think we G to go that far back and

then I guess I was confused by the so the question that my colleague had asked in terms of if we did not increase the rates you'd have to go to the general funds and then um I think was Mr Hart that asked what what would that look like in terms of the balance for the general fund so would are we suggesting that we're going to the stabilization accounts or because

I assumed that when you said we're going to the to the general fund that you would be looking for the general fund to subsidize it meaning that the revenue obviously that means we would have to reduce expenses in other departments to be able to cover unless we've got additional revenues that are available to be transferred over so I understood the question and answered the question as if we were talking about the

stabilization fund right so um so my understanding is that we're probably talking about half or more of the stabilization fund um would be used to to do this which of course I I would assume that you're 80 to 90% complete with the 25 budget right right so that you haven't built that into the budget so all the revenues have been accounted for obviously for other departments I would assume mostly yes okay yep so then

can I can I ask with and and I'm all for removing the onetime monies but I guess phasing it in is if we have $400,000 left in the the water can we reduce the water rate um by 400,000 just bringing that $400,000 of retained earnings into the board department and what does that look like in terms of because I know we're talking about two different two different rates

but at the end of the day it's one bill right so trying to offset and minimize the impacts yeah you know again and that that is something that that's looked at um you know something that we did look at again it came from the financial team that recommendation was not to use uh free cash within within the budget uh and when we built the budget we moved forward with that that's also something

uh you know that uh the consultant ref Tellis Dave Fox who was at the last meeting kind of went talked a little bit about um you know using the retained earnings within the budget but you know again that's that's a one-time plug back in so you're going to pay you're going to pay it this year or you're going to pay it next year if you don't have any next year you're can to end up paying it

next year you know and one of the things for this is to build a self-sufficient uh properly funded uh Enterprise fund again using the one time monies plugging back in year after year uh isn't uh a self-sustaining fund even though you meet your requirements that your revenues meet your expenses for do um so one of the one of the graphs that was shown at the last meeting uh kind of

goes through uh the Water fund balances um I guess I don't yeah okay and I'm trust me when I tell you I'm I'm not a proponent of using one time money I'm all for for minimizing and kind of weaning off the use of onetime money I've always said that I've maintained it but I think you've got 1.4 million that you used last year in the sewer yep right how much was in uh water that we

used uh so water was last year was 2.7 uh water free cash was 200 and 296,000 300 so 1.7 million total right yeah yeah so so I I guess what I would what I would s what I'm suggesting is is is that you take a multi-year approach of phasing off the onetime money right to help reduce that cost right so essentially if we throw the 400,000 we're saying that we've essentially

eliminated the use of $1.3 million of onetime money right and I'm just before I even and I'm not SU and I support that I'm just looking to figure out what that impact would be you know to the to the rirs yeah and again so um with the certified free cash the the retained earnings um water would only be we'd only be able to use it for water we wouldn't be able to use any within the

sewer Enterprise fund because iiz because we were in deficit um so just on that um if we did take um the retained earnings that we used last year within the budget at 200 96,000 that makes

up uh roughly about n and a half cents on the rate I was got to say 10 cents I should have said it it was close I know I know so if we took the full 400 396 that we have um and use that uh it's just under 13 cents on the

rate just so explain that again just under 13 cents yeah 12.9 so we so what is that though if we use the full 400 that was certified oh oh I I see okay so what was the what was the 10 cents then that was the 20 96 what we used in last year's budget so 13 13 cents if it was the 400k and then three like rough 300,000 would be 10

cents because I I think I mean ultimately right so if the council decides that they don't want to support and I don't know what where the support is in terms of the rate increases if we do not want to support it then we'll go back to the general fund and we're hitting onetime monies anyways right so I I think from my from my standpoint if we I would be comfortable using the

400,000 for this one time right build a budget next year without any additional onetime monies coming in um so we kind of wean oursel off the use of onetime money so we've essentially eliminated 1.3 million and then moving forward we're saying come back to us without any onetime monies um trying to build that ability with an over a two-year process right I mean this has been going on for

over 20 years now um do you have any I guess I know you had the consultants in and I I think you said the rate increases were like 8% so I would I would assume based on the fixed cost increase you know Collective bargain and agreements that you have going on you're probably going to look at another eight to 10% increase in those departments I would assume for water and sewer budget

increases future fiscal years yeah so the way that we the way that we we structured the rate increase we looked at a 5-year period uh and it was this rate increase this year to make up you know the difference for all past years and then 5% for the year for for the out years yeah for the next four years and that's how the uh that's how the budget model was built okay so again if we

wanted to do you know if you did want to use uh retained earnings uh within this year water budget next year rather than uh the 5% that was proposed um within the presentation we would be back here looking for higher than 5% yeah probably like eight or 10% correct all right I Mr trillin just for the public that's watching the sewer use uh the stor Water fee is $50 correct

what are we going from water while we were paying the increase in water and the increase in sewer so that the public hears that from you yeah so the increase again um so on water we were $3.77 going up to $436 per CCF uh that's a 59 C uh per CCF increase uh the average effect on an average household for water uh $312 uh for the average household and

again I just uh remind you that when I do this calculation household is looking at a uh you know single family would be a household or a multif family would be three three households um on the suicide um you're looking at going from $66 up to $811 per CCF again no increase in the storm order fee stays at $50 per eru uh and that's a $25 increase on the sewer rate um the uh

effect on the average household again uh based on the budgets that were built $108 65 what is your electric bill right now for the water department and Sewer Department the total water bill electric bill you pay so electric our overall budgeted amount uh for the fy2 budget uh is 1.9 million and

on water the majority of it is in treatment uh and that's budgeted at 850,000 um then we also have uh I believe it's about 30,000 budgeted within water maintenance for electricity I'm told by the uh I was told once by the power company that we're the largest electrical use of the Wastewater Plant and the water plant of the largest electrical user within the city and both of them combined is 1.9 million for for

the year nope 1.9 and then 8 plus 850,000 plus the 800,00 2.75 okay so if we have 2.75 that we spending on electricity yep and I got an email I'm sure all my colleagues did I'm not sure if you're read yet or not came in today and I know a lot of you work um you might have gotten one too but we have that new building it's got all kinds of lights

but we've not done anything with solar to cut that so if you cut that it's a savings to people it's like we need to look at ways to save so that we don't have to just keep increasing and doing the same whole thing just increase because every year salaries go up and every year chemicals go up that's a given but what else can we do and I think having a performance audit I don't

even need a performance audit to tell you that we should have put Sola and when we had the meeting on that building we said that it should be solar panels and even the lights that are there it really I mean go home and look at your computer the gentleman sent us photographs but it's it's all lit up at night I get it we want it lit but to that extent yeah I really I I really

hate to increase you know $25 on on you know sewer that that's a lift too for people yep um what is that going to be to the average household the $25 in the sewer yeah so the average household is 100 if they use whatever amount of water $18 the total was $86 for the year right that what you said so it's almost and it's almost what you said it's basically another bill if

we had four quarters water SE yeah total 139 so um just on that with the solar panels again the Water Maintenance building uh was fully constructed all the mechanical is inside of it as well as the structure of the building uh is designed uh to take the load bearing of solar panels uh it's we just done it we should have done it again the way that to procure a solar uh there's there's

multiple different ways to procure it uh during the construction we didn't want to add on that additional cost for us to uh install the panels own the panels and have to maintain the panels I don't think that's uh something good for the city uh I think it's better if we're able to just get uh proceeds from that so right now I'm working with National Grid uh to look uh at options for the

for the roof of that building as well as additional solar behind the building the cport style like you see it like BCC or stuff like that there's an area behind the building uh some other areas that we've looked at solar um down at the wastewater treatment plant uh across the street right now we're looking at a study to see uh what solar would do uh over there at the Terminus of our tunnel

uh that's kind of a little bit of a catch 22 cuz uh nutrient removal some of that site may need to be used um so that's one of the reasons that we didn't uh that we didn't do that um another we have that contract with the weight Water Treatment Plant yet uh so that's uh going through right you know still the review has been completed we have a notice of intent to

award so you know again solid definitely is is an option um and it is something that we're looking into a for the uh new Water Maintenance building we do have solar panels down at our water treatment facility uh in the city both our sewer uh plant and the water plant since we're the largest users as part of the uh some of the solar installations that have been done around the city uh I think

there was some that were done in industrial park and some other areas um we do receive the benefit of that seeing that we some of the largest users so okay how about our water sales are we selling water to any surrounding communities what's that looking like yeah Westport wants to buy more water from us yep so we sell both we sell to Freetown we sell to Westport and we s sell to North tiot and Fire District

again so our water sales if you look historically to our water sales uh you look back to the uh 1970s and 80s when there was a lot of uh Mills within the city uh we were pumping upwards 17 million gallons a day out of our water treatment plant uh we're down to about 10 million gallons a day you had uh certain industries uh Duro 600,000 gallons a day qua fabric almost a

million gallons a day uh so when those Industries uh left water usage went down uh and the tough thing is with with some of these operations you have a break even point where it doesn't make a difference with the pump more or less uh it's going to cost so much to be able to operate the plant maintain the plant uh and be able to do that so just on our our external Comm communities um there

is uh there is interest uh from Westport to uh extend out their water system they've had uh from what I've heard uh they've had some posos issues at some of the wells uh within there and then I would imagine if uh if if some of their uh public system Wells have it also private Wells would have that is why asking you because I heard that Port does want to expand the other thing that

you know drives me absolutely crazy is the wupa that if somebody on our side wants to put up a dock they've got to get all kinds of permits to get it done yet we owe 10 we own 10 feet over the shoreline because obviously the lake doesn't have Tides but all of those go up and we don't get any money for that yeah again but all that little bit of

money adds up so that we're not going to the pockets of City residents yeah you know again that that one's a little bit tougher because again Westport side is out of our jurisdiction um one thing that I've talked about in the past would be a dam District uh but that needs to be voted on by all municipalities that become part of that District but 10 feet into the shoreline

of the wapa belongs to the city of Far River uh on the on the north wupa we own around on the south on the south wupa it's a different type of repairing ownership uh where the surrounding property is actually owned to the center of the pond we own the rights to use and flow the water on the southw tppa pond so if anybody removes water from South they would have to pay us but on South

we actually don't physically own the land underneath the water which is different from our ownership uh you know Lake nooke and uh that whole entire Watershed we own the land underneath the water northw tuer Pond we own the land underneath the water and we are surrounded by water yet our residents can't get a tow in it figure that out out I can't figure that out with that I yield is there a motion on the

floor anybody have any more questions no so can we take these we can so uh I'll make a motion to adopt the sewer rates as presented second roll call on sewer rate refresh rate yes yes yes yes yes no and then just in terms of the the water um I guess I got a procedural question how we want to handle this so I guess my motion would be to utilize the

400,000 so can I make a motion to reduce the rate by 13 cents or do we need to reject it and have that we can make okay so I would I would make a recommendation that we um approve the uh water rate to $423 which is a 13c reduction based on the use of $400,000 of retained

earnings Ru correct and that's that's the calculation you had, right can you just was that we're not going to put ourselves in deficit yeah that's just let me the actual 423 so it might be

424

it's like when you're uh typing on the computer somebody standing over you give me this man a better calculator over here this is my good luck calculator mess up on right you want from 436 yeah that's 423 right is that not yeah yeah but you said 432 I was just correcting it oh I said 432 I'm sorry 423 yeah I was a little dyslexic they had 423 12.8 so 12 cents

if you do 12 cents all right so um amend it to $424 yes is there a second on that motion motion roll call motion to approve the water with a reduction 4.24 $424 with a 12 reduction coun yes yes yes Samson yes no thank you Mr Fillin thank you do we have a motion to uh lift y second second all in favor I this is a resolution to establish an ordinance to require ratification of

cable applications by the city council you heard what the concern was from Mr ailla um I might suggest that we want to just send this to legal and to see if it can be an ordinance change or if it needs to be a state yeah through through you chairwoman to councelor Kadeem has we have we had another issue since this in the past we haven't so which is why I I

drafted the ordinance the way it it reads because I wasn't looking necessarily to have the city council have the ratification but in the event I was looking really for a safety net so if we do have a situation similar to Mr Villas we would have the authority with a two two3 vote to override the denial of a of an application so it just you know eliminates the political uh issues

that that may arise and and hopefully we never see it again and we'll never have to use it but that's why it was just a two-thirds okay and so it wouldn't necessarily change anything just the now is coming down if we wanted to to override similar to a veto fair enough so is there a motion to approve motion motion second there a second okay I mean yeah with all of this with Mr rilla for

the length of time it took for him to get it back he lost a lot of money too which really wasn't fair so the motion should be referred to Corporation Council for ordinance what or do we already have one drafted no draft he would draft he would review this and draft that so we either approve it unless you want to ref I would approve it just approve it motion to approve

second motion to approve and there's a second pass through first reading yes lift item um six from the table the recommendation to left this is to discuss Banning balloons uh we had a lengthy discussion on this and I was gonna say I oh I'm sorry thank you so we lifted uh item six it was a discussion on Banning balloons and one of the problems we had was that there really was no way to

monitor that so motion Grant leave to withdraw second leave to withdraw with a second all in favor I item number seven is on the collection C second all in favor i i trash collection and proposal for the cart program motion Grant leave to withdraw second motion Grant leave to withdraw the second all in favor I and a resolution to convene um discussions with the administration regarding a the

veterans Advisory Board which he did was already put together yeah so motion Grant leave to withdraw motion Grant leave to withdraw there's a second all in favor I thank you very much motion to adjourn there's a second all in favor

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