City will seek water rate hike
By Adam Tobias of the Daily Times staff
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 1:00 PM CDT
The Watertown Common Council Tuesday approved a resolution authorizing Virchow Krause to submit an application to the Public Service Commission seeking a 6 percent increase in city water rates.
According to Vicki Hellenbrand of Virchow Krause, the increase is the result of increasing operating and maintenance costs and additional customers.
The 6 percent increase is expected to add $200,015 in water revenues. Virchow Krause forecasts that operating costs have increase by $148,000 or 5.5 percent.
Watertown Water Systems Manager Paul Lange said the additional revenue is also needed because of rising energy costs and to repair wells in the city.
“These are all rising costs that are catching up to our income,” Lange said.
The last time the city submitted a water rate increase was in 2006, but the PSC did not act on it until April 2007, Lange said. He added that it is supposed to take three to six months to get a response from the PSC following a submittal.
The 6 percent increase will last for one year once it goes into effect, Lange said. After that year the rates will be reviewed again, he added.
In other action Tuesday night, council members approved a resolution upgrading the city's Supervisor Control and Data Acquisition system. The contract with Kamp/Synergy is for $226,365.
The agreement with Kamp/Synergy is within $4,000 of the lowest bid the city received and includes all of the needed equipment.
“The recommendation is for what on paper appears to not be necessarily the lowest bid, but the important part in the language here is it pertains to a complete bid,” Alderman Tony Arnett said. “We were presented with rather extensive documentation by the water department manager and it was clearly shown that the Kamp/Synergy bid, when you took down all factors between all bids - what they didn't have or what they didn't include or what they did include - Kamp/Synergy was in fact, the lowest bid.”
A resolution authorizing Inland Power Group Inc. to repair the radiator on the emergency generator that serves the wastewater treatment plant in case of an electrical power outage was also approved by the council. The contract with Inland Power Group is for $22,150.
The radiator is leaking and the only way to fix it is to take the emergency generator off-line and completely remove the generator. During this time the treatment plant would be vulnerable to power outages, but Inland Power Group is required to hook up a stand-by generator that is expected to solve the temporary issue.
The first reading of an ordinance amending Chapter 18 of the zoning code was approved by the council.
The ordinance changes the numbering of the section dealing with planned unit development district procedures.
No one spoke during a public hearing held at the beginning of the council meeting that dealt with this ordinance amending on the zoning code.
The final reading of an ordinance changing the process of how absentee ballots are handled in the city was approved by the council members.
All absentee ballots will now be kept at city hall and processed at a central location by election inspectors. The ballots will then be taken to the proper polling place.
Before this ordinance was approved, when absentee ballots were turned in, they were taken to specific polling places and the inspectors at the tables would open and process them as though the voter was standing right there.
City Clerk Mike Hoppenrath requested the ordinance to help give some relief to the poll workers.
Aldermen also approved a resolution requesting that the city be exempt from paying any taxes in support of the Jefferson County library service.
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