ORDER-2015-194 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228-15 by adding paragraph C relative to Water Proration as set forth herein

Transcript (~5 min @ 2:24:38)

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▶ 2:24:24 John N. Tramontozzi: All right. Alderman Wright moves to retain this order in committee, seconded by Alderman Byrd. Any further discussion? Seeing none on that motion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed, seeing none. All right, that is retained in committee.

▶ 2:24:41 Speaker 2: Let's see, moving on to the next order.

▶ 2:24:44 John N. Tramontozzi: Order 2015-194, amending Melrose revised ordinances chapter 228-15 by adding paragraph C relative to water proration as set forth herein.

▶ 2:24:59 John N. Tramontozzi: Is this another one that we should keep in committee?

▶ 2:25:07 Speaker 2: What is the will of the committee?

▶ 2:25:19 Scott M. Forbes: Mr. Chairman, I was just wondering if you had an opinion. I know you mentioned prorating. I just didn't know if you had any type of comment related to this order. I know you said you were just here to talk about averaging, but if there is any input that you could give the committee, it would be beneficial for us since you are here this evening.

▶ 2:25:38 Speaker 9: Yes. I haven't given much consideration of proration. I know Mr. Shenna has given extensive consideration, so I would defer to him and his opinion.

▶ 2:25:46 Speaker 10: for mr shenner if you happen to have an opinion on the matter operation is a process that was in place um several years ago and i believe two two fiscal years ago when we switched to the tiered rate system we collectively the committee and then this board supported a move away from prorating water bills the tiered system complicated the ability of us to do that consistently um and it's it was just something we decided to go away from because our consultant said it was inflating our rates and in fact um we cfo proposed these orders to for the consultant to give us a brief quick summary and he feels that it it's in that eight to ten to twelve percent range increase will be the impact of if we went back to prorating bills and again that's not something we can do this fiscal year this will be a discussion for next year's fiscal year rates because this year set and we're all already we're already billing okay and this was something that was

▶ 2:26:54 Scott M. Forbes: determined in the water and sewer committee and discussion and presenting

▶ 2:27:02 Speaker 2: before the board okay thank you mr. McAteer my goals mr. Shannon my

▶ 2:27:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: recollection when we started talking about this a couple of years ago was that once we got the new meters in it could be read electronically remotely we

▶ 2:27:19 Speaker 10: won't it won't be an issue anymore we could go we could we collectively could make a decision to switch to monthly billing right and this issue will go away because we could read in June and bill in June the issue right now is we read monthly but we're reading three months worth of consumption because we issue a quarterly bill obviously if we switch to a monthly billing system which our infrastructure will have the capability to do within the next year year and a half that's a decision that we have to make and you know there's operational financial impacts to send in 12 sets of bills out as opposed to four but this issue is totally totally goes away with with monthly billing and where

▶ 2:28:03 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: we have how many how much of the city is currently well we did some work in Ward

▶ 2:28:07 Speaker 10: two one and two now we're in Ward I believe four five and four five and seven I know four yeah four five and seven so we're making our way around the

▶ 2:28:23 Speaker 7: city so probably within a year yes it's correct thank you any further discussion

▶ 2:28:33 John N. Tramontozzi: So I take that that also applies to order 2015-195 when it talks to the sewer proration. 194 is water and 195 sewer. So if we do that with 194 we should also do with 195. We'll discuss that in a second. What's the will of the committee on order 2015-194?

▶ 2:28:54 Francis X. Wright Jr.: I would make a motion that we place it on file with the suggestion that the issue is appropriate to be revisited um either by the water and sewer committee or this board in the next year that uh it could be brought back before us second very good we have a motion by

▶ 2:29:10 John N. Tramontozzi: alderman wright to place on file seconded by alderman forth on the motion all favor