Town attempts to get on track with ordinance

PLAINS – The Town of Plains held a public hearing on Wednesday, December 18 to discuss an ordinance that has gone unexecuted for quite some time.

As the Public Works meeting opened, President of the Council, Carl Reeb said the item on the agenda was water.

“I’d like to make a comment before we get going here. We’re not raising water rates. We have no intention of raising water rates. What we are looking at are business rates,” explained Reeb.

Reeb continued on to say the town’s code states that each business is to have a one inch line, however, after the new water system was installed, the town discovered that more than half of the businesses have a ? inch line.

“They’re not on an equal playing field. So we’re trying to resolve that – we are not raising rates,” said Reeb.

Currently 19 businesses have a one-inch line while the other 45 businesses are on a ? inch line.

The ordinance states “for commercial uses a base rate of 1.79 times the dwelling base rate will be charged multiplied by the number of electric meters.”

According to a breakdown of the water rates table provided by Plains City Hall, the multiplier of a one-inch line is 1.79, while the multiplier of a ? inch line is one.

The purpose of the meeting was to come up with ideas to present to council for a possible solution to the problem.

Many business owners came in ready for some answers.

Business owner Gary Revier asked why the businesses in town should be charged a different rate than residential.

Reeb explained the ordinance has been on the books long before any of the council members stepped on board. Both the committee and the council’s goal is get back with the program and make sure the laws in place are being followed.

According to council member Dan Rowan, there are three options at this point.

The first option is to forget about the 19 businesses that are charged at the 1.79 rate, however, this may cause problems.

“You can’t have the city saying some people are going to pay one rate and others are going to pay another rate,” explained Rowan.

The second option is to enforce the ordinance on the books by coming up with ideas on how to correct it.

“The committee and in general, the council, would like to see fairness in billing,” said Rowan.

The third option is to lower the 19 users down to a ? inch rate, however that would cost the town in between $6000 and $7000. Currently the town is where it needs to be in order to pay its loan for the water system project. If this option was implemented, the town would have to raise everyone’s bill in town by approximately $1 a month to make up the shortage.

During the meeting council member Sandy Chenoweth also proposed to take the line out of the ordinance that states businesses would be charged at a 1.79 rate.

“The best thing to do is take the black marker and get rid of that ordinance,” explained Chenoweth.

Although no solution was found at this meeting, Reeb said there were unhappy people on both sides. The town is busy trying to determine how to make everyone happy with a fair solution to all.

Mayor Michael Brinson spoke up at the meeting and said the right thing needed to be done.

“The committee, the council, the new mayor are trying to figure out what they need to do to make it right for the businesses,” said Mayor Brinson.

With no solution present at this meeting, the Public Works Committee will continue to work on this in their next meeting and will present the issue to the town council on January 6.

“We have to come up to a proposal to present to council or a couple and let council decide or vote on one or council can take no action,” said Rowan.