ORDER-2015-143 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article II, Section 228-15 (Water Rates Established), for Fiscal Year 2016 as set forth herein.

Transcript (~12 min @ 35:50)

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▶ 35:43 Speaker 1: uh i don't know who made the motion first the clerk of committees is going to have to sort that out who's the second on the motion i got the second one on the motion to commence the public hearing all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes public hearing is hereby commenced and this is a public hearing pursuant to which anybody who wishes to testify relative to water and sewer rate issues may come forward and we will listen to

▶ 36:19 Speaker 3: whatever you have to say my name is Harry Hawks I reside at Merrill's towers building 53 I wrote to the Board of Aldermen last year actually our August 1 2014 concerning the water and sewer rates and the new water sewer rates what I wrote in the letter I felt were unfair and unreasonable. And one of the things I talked about was the cost of service to the city to supply water. The cost of service to supply water to Merrill's Towers, for example, three large buildings, three large meters, would be considerably less expensive to the city of Merrill's than to supply 164 individual homes, read 164 individual meters, and maintain all those water pipes to all those individual homes so we're being unfairly billed for our water rates we're in the we're in the top tier because of our water consumption on those master meters and in that letter i wrote i wrote to the alderman and suggested that they should somehow do some variance to that to the water rates to address that situation and i was pleased to get an email from monica maduras alderman and my understanding she's proposed order 2 1 2015 193 which i think addresses that issue i'm not sure it's the exact right way to do it but i think something that in the way she's written it would solve the problem for us we have had meetings in the past with the board of public works and they've talked about individual metering it's absolutely unfeasible i'm an engineer unfeasible in at least one of of the three buildings at the towers so I'm here to speak that I wish that the board would consider seriously Alderman Medeiros order 2 0 1 5 1 9 3 thank you

▶ 38:29 Speaker 1: thank you sir thank you anyone else who wishes to speak this evening I'm Joan

▶ 38:38 Speaker 3: Leighton I live at 49 Melrose Street number 5 C one of the three buildings of

▶ 38:49 Speaker 3: Melrose Towers I sent you all a cover letter plus two documents I don't know whether you got it with the four quarters of our water and sewer bills

▶ 39:04 Speaker 3: the past four quarters and okay we're three buildings of 164 separate units we We each get our own real estate tax bills, which we pay, but we do not get individual water bills. Water and sewer bills because we do not have separate meters, and unfortunately, we cannot just because of the structures of the buildings, we cannot replumb all three buildings.

▶ 39:30 Speaker 3: So if you read my information or if you do read my information, you'll see that I suggested The fairest solution for us seems to be dividing, for example, in our building, each of the three buildings has a water meter. But in my building there are 55 separate individual units. So the water meter measures the water consumed by 55 different individual property owners. So if you look at the figures you'll see that if you divide the total consumption of building 49 by 55 units, it comes out to a little under 1,000 cubic feet per unit. However, we are billed, we quickly go up to Tier 2, and the bulk of our bill is Tier 3, which means our

▶ 40:25 Speaker 3: bills are really very, very, very high. And basically, you're breaking our budget and And then our individual bank accounts because we have to pay what I think is really an unfairly high rate. So I too support Alderman Medeiros order that you do exactly what I tried to explain now and what I tried to explain in writing earlier because it's really, the term fair does get overused, I think, but in this case, I don't know. There's an equitable way of doing it. Now, if you absolutely cannot, for some reason, do it that way, can you come up with a fourth tier, fifth tier, sixth tier, whatever, to accommodate property owners in non-profit multi-unit residences? Because we're not in the business of making money. we have to pay these huge bills. Whereas if we were living in 164 single-family homes, I would be paying Tier 1, no doubt about that, because I'm just one person living in a unit. But as it now stands, I'm paying outrageous fees for water I don't really use. So I repeat, if you could seriously consider Alderman Medeiros order, not only for us, but for the other properties in town who probably have the similar problems and are in a similar situation thank you

▶ 42:14 Speaker 1: thank you for coming down anyone else who would like to speak tonight

▶ 42:25 Speaker 1: joe pelrine 70 howard street um of course i'm just like everybody else my water bill is awful what i'm here tonight to talk about is the way we account for the money we receive in with the city for the water bills um i learned last year at the this meeting um that the treasurer doesn't differentiate last year's money from this year's money so in other words when people's water bill checks come in for july 10th for the previous quarter he's just dumping that money into the bank account with no separate accounting to see like every year right it on june 20th we figure out the waters you know 5 000 in the hole and we have to scrounge around for the money to pay it but we never know because it's so early and all the checks haven't come in yet how much money the city is really taking in in each fiscal year so what i'm asking is that maybe the treasurer could start a separate bank account for late water payment checks say for the month of july keep track of all the checks that come in in the month of july so we know where we were in june instead of just throwing all the money in and not really knowing so that's something i think about a lot

▶ 44:17 Speaker 1: all right thank you anyone else wants to speak i'm astrid napolitano and i'm with the towers It's true, I'm in 51, and one thing I want you to consider is a lot of us in the towers are over 65, and I believe there's a benefit for the over 65 population with the water bill, and I think that should be factored in also. Great, thank you.

▶ 44:54 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Sir.

▶ 45:01 Speaker 3: Good evening, my name is Lou Franchi, Franchi Management, I represent Town and State Apartments. Unlike the towers, which is a condominium, we are a for-profit business. But in the last three to four years, we've seen the tiering system and the water rates increase so much that we've had to start implementing rate increases in our leases as well. And we've always looked at our property as a very reasonable setting for people starting out. We're two bedroom units. We average, when we look at our water bills, we average well below the first tier if you would take all our water units usage in a building.

▶ 45:54 Speaker 3: And since the tiering system has been implemented, we've increased our water budget by $100,000. Now that obviously has to translate into passing that on to the consumer, which we found that was very hard to do, especially when our leases are set up for a year in advance, and we're looking at recouping that. But more so, we're very conscious about the water usage. We've implemented conservation programs where we have checked toilet programs on a regular basis. The aerators have been changed, shower heads have been changed through a program. We check for leaky faucets on a regular basis. And we've noticed from our water bill, and we graphed this, that our water usage in the last three years has decreased. However, because of the tiering system, our water costs, our water billing, has increased. Now that doesn't seem like a equitable program where you work hard to save the water, And you're getting penalized because you're on a master's meter system. And we're asking that, similar to what the Towers was asking, is that we go to an averaging program. So it allows us to be equitable as a one family or a single family might be as well.

▶ 47:37 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 47:53 Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. Anyone else who wants to speak this evening?

▶ 48:01 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to close the public portion of the public hearing, Mr. President.

▶ 48:05 Speaker 1: Second. Alderman moves to conclude the public hearing. The motion is seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. On the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Public hearing is concluded. These orders were laid on the table and I would suggest need to be returned to the appropriations committee so we can discuss them further on Thursday night.