ORDER-2016-33 : BE IT ORDERED that the City shall cause all water meters in the City to be read between June 15th and June 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and sewer bills for the quarter ending June 30th.

Transcript (~5 min @ 6:55)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 6:38 John N. Tramontozzi: anybody want to come forward all in favor aye I'm looking at some members of the public but nobody's not coming forward motion to close public participation second we have a motion to close public participation by Alderman Forbes seconded by Alderman Mortimer on the motion all in favor aye any opposed seeing none public participation is now closed we have two orders on the agenda this evening of order number 2016-33 be it ordered that the city shall cause our water meters in the city to be read between june 15th and june 30th of each year for the purpose of issuing water and

▶ 7:21 John N. Tramontozzi: sewer bills for the quarter ending june 30th and we president khan as the maker of the order thank

▶ 7:25 Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, as many of you recall, one of the principal reasons, or at least, well, I'll speak for myself. I suppose I shouldn't speak for the collective because usually that's not a good idea for me. One of the principal reasons that I supported, well, actually it was the principal reason I supported the water meter replacement because we were informed that the new water meters that were currently installing throughout the city would be of a sufficient technology so that we could if we wanted to read the entire city within a very very short period of time my understanding is that we're more than 30% along with the water meter replacement project at this point in time um by the time that this order would take effect next spring hopefully will be 80 90 or more down the road in terms of our water and sewer replacement program so we will be able to and i vetted this with mr shanna before filing it to make sure that he believes that it's feasible to do this and he believes it is so i would suggest that this water is the solution to the the back billing problem where we're carrying over billing from one year to the next this gets us to a point where we're very close to the turnover in the year um this is why i supported the order for the water meter replacement um i would uh well i'm not going to urge you to support the order tonight because i'm not going to ask you to vote on it tonight what i would like to do is refer this to the water sewer committee to have them give a formal opinion as to whether they think this is an appropriate proposal i hope that they'll agree with me then i hope that the board will pass this and then i hope at long last we will be able to put this issue to rest but i think that this is an order that solves a problem in the city and i hope that when it gets to the point of voting that you'll all support this motion to hold this order in

▶ 9:41 John N. Tramontozzi: committee in the legal and legislative committee so that it may be referred to the water committee Very good, we have a motion on the floor by Alderman Mortimer to retain this order in committee. With the understanding as we will refer the order to the Water and Sewer Commission for recommendations. There is a second to that motion by Alderman Byrd. Any further discussion?

▶ 10:08 Speaker 1: President Clark. Mr. Chairman, as our representative on the committee, will you ensure that this gets on the docket for one of the upcoming meetings so that it is in fact discussed, please?

▶ 10:16 John N. Tramontozzi: i will uh an email was sent to uh the mr schenner uh asking for the a date for the next meeting um i haven't received the response yet so maybe another the next meeting has not been scheduled yet but i will notify the board as soon as that meeting is scheduled so everybody has an opportunity to be present and i will see that this order does get to before them anything else father Madam Medeiros.

▶ 10:42 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. I'm a non-voting member of this committee. However, I applaud President Kahn for taking action on this. This is something that, and actually this type of idea is something that I had been considering doing. I wasn't sure that we were going to be ready to do this in time for June 30th. I do hope we are. As this goes to the Water and Sewer Rate Commission, I wasn't sure whether we'd be voting on this tonight or not, but one thing, and I did briefly mention it to President Kahn.

▶ 11:22 Monica C. Medeiros: As it stands right now, although the end of our fiscal year is June 30th and remains June 30th, the alderman may set rates at any time throughout the year. And in particular, you know, for instance, this year, our new rates start June 29th.

▶ 11:48 Monica C. Medeiros: So I would have proposed an amendment saying instead of, say, June 15th, that the meters be read no less than, say, 10 or 15 days before the implementation of a rate change. So, as this goes to the Water and Sewer Committee, if you could, might consider asking them to review that as an option as well.

▶ 12:12 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, very good. Any further discussion?