[Unidentified]: Very quick.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hi, Mr. Suda. How do I let him in? I can't hear him.
[Dan Stoneking]: It's muted. He's in, but John's iPad is muted. John, you're on mute, buddy. You're on mute, John.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mute. He's on mute. Here's my wife, Linda. Hi.
[SPEAKER_09]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Good, how are you?
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm well. So this was an increase rather than for something.
[SPEAKER_06]: 89 Sheppard Road. You have a copy. I gave it to you in your packet.
[SPEAKER_09]: He said he's going to read right all the stuff. OK. Well, I'm glad he knows. Yeah, it's great. So what am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_06]: Read your minutes. Did I just give you a copy of your minutes?
[Dan Stoneking]: This is your wallet. Let me go find it. Miss you. You're bored. You could have just one minute, if you don't mind. I don't want to read that. Sure.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: I didn't give you a copy of the minutes. In a couple of minutes, we'll stop the meeting officially.
[SPEAKER_06]: You guys got a sign.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: That's what I mean. Yeah. We'll accept the meetings in a couple of minutes.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I want you to look at them. Oh, you got them? Yeah.
[SPEAKER_12]: OK, good. Well, you see that email on Lisa's phone?
[SPEAKER_06]: Email? Emily is going to be on Zoom.
[Dan Stoneking]: She's going to be on Zoom. Hopefully. She just sent an email saying she's out. Oh, unavailable.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, that was very nice of you to provide us with this letter.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay, this is just to get out the email that he sent us.
[Dan Stoneking]: You're talking about Sheffield, right?
[SPEAKER_10]: No, I'm talking about Camilla.
[Dan Stoneking]: Oh, this is her last night. Has she had a discussion with the administration about who's going to replace you?
[SPEAKER_06]: I sent an email saying that they have to hire somebody.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I'll be getting this together, so don't worry about it. I'll close this one out. If anything happens, I'll show up.
[SPEAKER_10]: When do you officially leave? Officially.
[SPEAKER_06]: Friday.
[SPEAKER_10]: My expectation is once you retire, you retire. I mean, I'm not gonna call you back in here.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know, but if you need me, I will come. Only if you get paid for it. No, I don't care if I get paid. I'll come in and do it. You know what I'm saying?
[Dan Stoneking]: Listen, if you wanna make arrangements with the administration that you still do this as a paid person. Okay, well, I'm just saying. And I'm just saying that I don't, I would have no issue with that because I'd be a secretary and if nobody steps up.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're gonna be in trouble. And now, we'll see, we'll see, we'll make it work one way or another, somehow.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Okay, so this is the final, let's see, when did you, this is from when, from before the 500 was put in? The 500 was put in? That was the final one. No, but, yes, but.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but that's the last one I got.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: which is before the city approved the 500. And we found out that the MWRA didn't increase its thing according, because the budget that was put in by Mayor Menezes and the DBW was, they put a 4.2% increase in the assessment, but then the MWRA only increased it by 2.2%. So therefore there's a big difference. And he said that possibly was gonna refresh the numbers. This is what I'm saying. This is not a final thing. Well, it's not a final thing. So, let me see if I can call him, see if I can get a hold of him. This is crazy. He never, he never, he never answered, he never. So, this is so weird how things have been turning out, man.
[Dan Stoneking]: How are you, Mark? Not too bad, you? No. How was your vacation? It was pretty good. Good, good. Did you get all the paperwork back on that? Well, I haven't even sent it out yet. I've been on vacation for three weeks. Oh, the paperwork to him to fill out? Oh, I'm not sure.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Was that meter that was sent out to be tested? I haven't even got a chance. Did you send it out?
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah. To these guys? Yeah. Mr. Suda.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes. I with the hatchet letter form.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did, I did. I didn't receive anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, yeah.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Hi Dave, this is Dominic. We're at the meeting, the commission meeting. No, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't put on that. I mean, I lost my job at COVID. I didn't have much choice. So I'm not working. We're living kind of off what we've saved up over the years. We're not on social security yet, but you know, I don't know. I don't know. I looked at it. Would I qualify for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we did we either one of us are working now. But we, we can't produce doctors notes for why we're not working, but. You know, we've, since we both lost our jobs during COVID, we've been in it, we've had retirement moments.
[Dan Stoneking]: Right. If you remember when, and I spoke to Ron after the fact, I know that the form was an extremely extensive form with a lot of personal information. And I said to Ron, Ron, all I was looking to do was get something in writing from the both of you, just making the statement from, either your employer that you have been released or you're not working anymore. I just wanted to know that the two of you were not employed. That's all I cared about. Can you get something to us? basically that's going to be the premise for whatever vote we decide to reduce the bill on because that's that's the hardship that you're not you're not both fully employed and therefore i was making the the argument that that was a hardship for that kind of bill to be paid okay because when we looked at the form it appeared that
[SPEAKER_05]: we wouldn't qualify without a doctor. No.
[Dan Stoneking]: My apologies. Like I said, I thought I was clear, but I guess I wasn't with Ron after the fact. I knew that the form was asking for an awful lot of personal information. And I really personally didn't care. All I wanted to know that you both were unemployed. That's all. So there's something that you can get from your employers.
[Unidentified]: We get that. I can get that.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, that's all I cared.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. I guess I should have talked to you guys after I got the letter because yeah, I was looking, looking at the form, and it didn't seem like, you know, it's, we don't have physical, you know, we can't produce so you know, doctor notes, and things like that, but we can produce that we're currently not employed. Yeah.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah. And I don't know if john and that was going to set as a commission that was going to satisfy me to, you know, take a vote on what kind of reduction in the outgoing suicide of that bill. Okay, it was a 50% reduction, but I was waiting to hear back. Okay, both unemployed, you know,
[SPEAKER_05]: for today's meeting. I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes. Okay. So yeah, we goofed up on that. Yeah. Okay.
[Dan Stoneking]: Well, not really. It's not just your fault. It's probably a little communication breakdown here because a regular hardship for other means would have required that whole form to be filled out. But I was just trying to do the right thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: So can I ask, would it be from my old boss, human resources? from our human resources department?
[Dan Stoneking]: Your HR department, as far as I'm concerned, a letter from them saying that you're no longer employed. And the date that you left would be obviously included in that letter. Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[Dan Stoneking]: Okay. All right. Okay. One second, I think the commissioner The chair would like to say a few.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Listen, we, we, we, as you know, from the last meeting, feel badly, obviously, about what happened. And unfortunately, because of the stuff that happened this past winter, you're not alone. And a lot of people have been hit by these frozen pipes and so on. as Commissioner Canelo pointed out, but the only thing that you probably would qualify for would be the financial side of hardship, which you wouldn't work on. But besides that, perhaps the commission can look into the so-called act of God side of things, because many communities do take that into consideration. Malden, for example, and however it does, my cousin, she had a frozen pipe and she had a lot of damage in the house and so forth, and the commission there, to remove the sure side of things. So that's something that we can discuss and then we can't just do it on our own, but we can discuss it and see if we can make that a component as well going forward. Because we do understand that these things are real, but they do occur, whether it's financial, health, et cetera, et cetera, or act of God. These things happen. Nobody wants them to happen, but they do happen. They're not frequent, but when they do, Yeah, sure. City would like to be helpful in that regard.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was a devastating loss.
[Dan Stoneking]: I mean, I'm sure. Oh, no, no. But under normal circumstances, this commission doesn't abate leaks.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: John. The other thing is that we discussed that, as I'm doing in my house in Cape Cod, I've got a plumber that's already working. I just want to shut off finally, right beyond the boiler, so that the next time you come home, you are doing that, hopefully. Yeah, yeah. I would do that. No, no. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[Dan Stoneking]: And I would put a pitcock so you could drain the system past that boiler. So even though you shut it off, you can't have water in those pipes as it freezes. So a crack pipe, when you return, you turn the water back on. You have to have a lead that bleeds the system.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we have the old upright radiators. So I would be very hesitant to shut off the heating. But, but yeah, we just had a contractor in because we got to begin, you know, the repairs. And that's one of the things we're going to look into is getting that shut off behind the boiler.
[Dan Stoneking]: So at least, yeah, at least you have heat in the home, but the rest of the water lines in the house are closed down. Yeah. And drained. Yeah. And bled. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, we did.
[SPEAKER_05]: I did speak to the oil company before we were away. And I had talked to them about and we left the heat on, you know, I just I don't want you to think we will be an irresponsible and just let it you know, like they had said, you know, keep the upper 50s 60s. And we should be okay. So yeah, You know, I just didn't want you to think we were being negligent and we've never asked for it.
[Dan Stoneking]: All you need is one pipe to be on the wrong wall with no insulation around it. And that will, with those kinds of weather conditions, you'll have a problem. So that's another thing you might want to look into. Are all the pipes insulated?
[SPEAKER_05]: We talked to him today. We talked to the contractor today about insulating all the pipes. Thank you, though.
[SPEAKER_03]: Actually, where the pipe broke, that was part of the finished basement and there was insulation around it and everything. It was on an outer wall and it is what it is. It got too damn cold. That's the other thing too, is the thermostat is in the center of the house on the first floor. you know, and that was, that pipe was on the north side by the coldest, most exposed part of the house. So, you know.
[Dan Stoneking]: Well, again, understand that this consideration is based on the situation financially of both of you unemployed.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the key data prior obviously to the leak. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for, yeah, being understanding about that. We will get you that documentation right away.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I apologize that that wasn't communicated specifically back to you. Yeah, yeah. Camille is, you know, wasn't in the loop. So yeah, no, I realized that after the fact, because the form, the chairman sent me the form, I went, Whoa, this is way too much information for what we're trying to accomplish with this particular incident.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, well, yeah, when we saw the form, it kind of blew us away. This isn't a road we can But yeah, we can certainly meet those, get to those, that documentation. Okay, we'll get it out to you, you know.
[Dan Stoneking]: All right, so once you get that in, and then the rest of the commission, when Emily is here, we'll discuss it and take a vote on it. We'll either invite you back in for our decision, or we'll just write to you and tell you what the decision is. Great, we appreciate your time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you so much. All right, thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Bye bye now. Is there something else you needed to talk about? No, no, I have the email to send the information to.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want to make sure we know where to send the information when we get it.
[Dan Stoneking]: Right. You have a return address to Ron, I believe.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[Dan Stoneking]: All right. I'll send it to Ron. Absolutely. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ron is our go-to person. Go-to person. Yeah. He sent me the original abatement request form, and I have his email. Excellent.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_12]: Have a nice meeting. We're all set? When someone's muted. We're all set?
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, we're all set.
[SPEAKER_12]: Okay, bye. Bye-bye now. Let me speak when they're spoken to. If you say, hey, Dave, how you doing? He'll unmute.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, okay. Dave, how you doing?
[SPEAKER_09]: Hey, guys. Hey, everybody. Before we, guys, excuse me for one second. Just so we, going forward, could we please observe a few Roberts rules
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: We can't just jump into conversations in the middle of people talking and so on and so forth. This is the chair. I don't like that. It's crazy. I'm stupid. But if you want to say something, just go like this. Don't just jump in. Because last time was crazy. Everybody's talking at the same time. And it was probably the worst meeting I've ever been to. And I didn't behave. And I apologize. And I didn't behave well with it because I was so unnerved by it.
[Dan Stoneking]: Not to pass the buck, but we had a young lady sitting here that just, it was a lot of stuff in front of her. I was just whispering that we're on this particular.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: It wasn't that, it wasn't just that, you know, I was in the middle of something. It doesn't matter. We're not going to re-argue this. Listen, you know what I mean? It's my fault. Listen, whatever I did was my fault. I shouldn't, but the fact remains that going forward, you just, that's why there's, you know, if you want to chair the meetings, then chair the meeting, and then I will raise my hand when I want to speak. schedule on them for the next meeting. Oh, well, I don't know. Hopefully we'll make it on a Wednesday because it is better. That's why they've been scheduled. This one, I don't know. Let's not revisit this. Okay. The next meeting would be, oh, Dave, excuse me. Are you guys all set with the, you know what, you know, okay. Dave, the only thing we have is the so-called final, I don't know if you can see that, but this is the final thing that shows the rates at, for example, for the tier 0 to 800, combined would be 17 and 15, I don't know. whatever the heck that is. But that's before the council approved the $500,000 transfer to the budget and after Mary Menezes, who heads the DPW office, she told me that she put in the budget a 4.2% increase as a proposed assessment, which turned out to be only a 2.2% increase. As you know, so that makes a difference in the budget and the rates, I would assume.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does, Dom. So I reran that. It brings the total budget down by about the MWRA assessment alone by about $217,000. So previously from our last meeting, you remember with the $500,000 transfer, we were looking at an 8% rate increase? Yeah. Taking the $500,000 into consideration again, excuse me, I'm sick, so if my voice sounds bad, I apologize. And in addition, reducing the MWRA assessment, that increase for 2024 comes down to 7%.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Does that also take into consideration the lower assessment? That's another $275,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lower assessment, yes. Combined, yes.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: So it's actually a lowering of 600, 650 was the increase from fiscal 23 to 24 from the 651,000, not 800 and something thousand. So the total decrease was 500 plus another two, about $750,000 from the previous budget that was proposed to you. So not just 500,000. So it should make it a little bit lower, I think, than just 7.7%.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so there were two items that got presented to you last time by me. A 10% increase with the budget as it was with the higher MWRA assessment and no offset from retained earnings. And then an 8% increase, which assumed the $500,000. Correct.
[Dan Stoneking]: So we're okay with the 500, we got a lower. I'm sorry. Let him finish speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the $500,000 offset retained earnings, but with still the higher MWRA assessment. And then Dom, you sent me the new MWRA or the final MWRA assessments last week, which reduced the MWRA assessment by about $217,000. And that brings the rate increase down from 8% to 7%. Oh, good.
[Dan Stoneking]: Commissioner Ratanella would like to ask a question. OK. I thought you said 7.7, so we're at 7. Oh, good. And then there was a reduction on Mary Moniz's numbers revised down. And that was taken into consideration? Yeah. Was it? Because I didn't see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the MWRA assessment, correct?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: No. So what the commission is asking is that 7% includes both the MWRA lower assessment and the $500,000 that was transferred into the budget.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it does.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, that's what it said. Instead of 10%, it said 7%. That's good. So when can we get these numbers? so that we can vote on it and just put him through because Ronnie needs- Ron, you don't have a printer there, do you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I can print. You want to send me something to print? I can send it to you right now.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, send it to my email.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll go get it. Thank you, David. No problem.
[SPEAKER_10]: Let me just make sure that he gets it before- I could have swore that there was a lower number from Mary's department that went down, but I guess that's not the case. No, they put in 4.2.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Well, that's, that was this, you know, the 10% that would have been part of the next meeting. Yeah, they come into the, you know, if the thing has been testing, you know, he hasn't sent out to me to be tested yet. Yeah.
[Dan Stoneking]: What the gentleman just owner is that the other one that was just on that wasn't to me. Oh, I'm sorry.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Sure. Yeah, sure.
[Dan Stoneking]: We'll have something.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Okay. I just want to make sure. Well, they got to get that paperwork sent in.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, that's what we're waiting on.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: They can be invited once that paperwork comes in. Put them in the agenda. And then, and then the other, the other couple, you know, once the meter, he's going to send it, it's just back from vacation, he's going to send it out. And once that comes back, plus minus whatever it says, then we can make a decision on that.
[SPEAKER_06]: or that other one you asked for.
[Dan Stoneking]: So we only picked up 1% reduction from the initial 10. Three. Well, from 10 to eight, and then the reduction in the actual MWRA, we picked up one point, even though we reduced our two.
[SPEAKER_09]: All combined, it was 3%, so that's okay. That's fine.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Hi, Dan. Hello. How are you? I'm all right. Yeah, you do know about that. I know we talked about the transfer of the money that the mayor put into the budget. So what are you going to do? That's something that we as a commission don't have any control over, but certainly You know, you, the Water and Sewer Division can make a case for not doing it again. You know what I mean? The mayor may not recommend it again next year, we can't.
[Ron Baker]: Dave Fox has been pretty stern about this, but I mean, what can you do? You're right, it's not my decision either. The only thing I can do is express my concerns about it and that's it. So where are we at, if you don't mind me asking?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: As you know, as you know, we as a commission did not ask for it. And I appreciate that. And you guys, but the mayor is the mayor. And the mayor can do whatever the mayor wants to do. And the council, you know, approved it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they- 7% increase, Dan. Yeah. Okay.
[Ron Baker]: I'm not sure how we get the work done when we need to, but I guess that's what it needs to be, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be about a 9-10% increase just for getting the revenue to hit the budget in 2024 alone, not taking into consideration anything going forward. That $500,000 reduces the percentage increase by about 2%.
[Ron Baker]: So if I can get this right, cause I believe this is accurate. If we pay 500,000, I'm not sure what the retained earnings is. I would assume 500,000. Am I right?
[Dan Stoneking]: That's what they transferred proposal.
[Ron Baker]: Yeah. So that's 500,000 this year, but that carries, that carries over, right? I mean, we lose that ongoing. That's not like, it's just a one year thing. Yes.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: No, no, hold on, hold on. That can be because there have been years we never asked for anything. One year we're asked as much for a million and they put a million in there. It's not something that has to be done year after year.
[Ron Baker]: No, no, no. What I'm saying is if we do it this year, the implications remain next year because we didn't... This is what I was trying to point out.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's 100% correct.
[Dan Stoneking]: We've been doing this quite often over the years. And when you were given the competitive rates around the cities and towns, we don't know what they've been doing. We only know what we've been doing. So that's the reason why our rate is not.
[Ron Baker]: So if you do 500,000 this year, say just examples, I'm not saying this is happening, 500,000 this year, 500,000 next year, I mean, you're getting into, we're just constantly getting to a point where the rates are not where they need to be. So when we do raise the rates through the roof, yes. Correct.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: So just to re-clarify a few things. Sure. This year we didn't ask for it, but there's a reason for that. You know, if you're not, if you haven't, not if, but we all have a political, you know, sense. I'm a little bit allergic to it all, but I know why. It's important for them to say, Hey, listen, and to keep the rates low and the council on the mandate. That's it. We have no, we, none of us has any control over it. Now, the thing is that if the, if the city itself, if the city said that $500,000 belongs in that budget, you know why? Because the city doesn't pay for its use of water and sewer. And yet nobody, nobody, we presented this, you know, year after year, I made it known to the council individually, they said, listen, pay it, you know, the money you owe all the schools, it's $500,000, $600,000 as Ronnie knows, they don't pay for it. So it belongs in that budget anyway. So at the end of the year, what they do is, well, okay, fine, we'll take it out and that's how we'll pay for it. It's how they pay for it that's a problem. It should be part of the tax base. It should be part of the property tax, of course, because that's where it's belonged for years and years and years and years.
[Ron Baker]: This is no, and I understand that. And that's something that we can always work towards. But the issue is that that when we keep the rates, if we keep bringing the rates down like this, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? Right. Somebody is going to sit down and go, oh, my God, you're right. We are in catastrophic situation right now. How do we fix it? 25% increase in rates. You know what I mean? Eventually that's where it goes because we are currently budgeted out at replacing a half a mile of pipe a year. You can't sustain that way, you can't. So this is the water and sewer budget, right? Water and sewer. We haven't even talked about sewer. We haven't even begun to discuss the condition of the sewer infrastructure, please. Well, Dan.
[Dan Stoneking]: Go ahead. there are avenues that you can go. You can ask the mayor to consider in the council putting on the ballot a debt exclusion proposal based on whatever numbers that the department comes up to replace all this hundreds of miles of piping that need to get done eventually. That's one avenue that you could do. Second one is that enterprise fund, you could, in theory, you could take five million out of it right now if she wanted to, to put towards your project. Now, these new meters that are going in, history has shown is when you put new meters in, and correct me if I'm wrong, Dave, you're probably now they're more accurate. We're probably gonna, I would think, maybe generate a surplus this year.
[Unidentified]: Not intentionally.
[Ron Baker]: How many?
[Dan Stoneking]: Two years. But this isn't done intentionally because we can only go by the data that's given to us so Dave can run the numbers. We're supposed to be a zero sum balance, you know, proposal. Okay. I'm not disagreeing with you. There's money either through a debt exclusion or raising rates like you said, but that's, we can't do that either because we can only work with the numbers that Mary Menizzi gives us in the MWRA.
[Ron Baker]: But do the numbers not bring us out to roughly 10%? Meaning?
[Dan Stoneking]: Yes. So we're dealing with a couple of things, right? If we're not gonna go after the mayor on the 500K and say, please don't do this, okay? I would expect that to just be a given and we can just push that to the side. Unless the commission wants to say, hey, look, we need to pay the bills with the money coming in. The other thing is we're talking about even reducing by what the MWRA reduction was from their preliminaries. Why not leave it alone, which would give us a little bit of a buffer? That's not what our duty is. Our duty is to have a zero-sum balanced budget. I do not propose making an artificially increased budget.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: The only caveat that this was made clear to me from day one, from the legal department was that we cannot artificially create a deficit. We cannot create a deficit intentionally, but it never said that you can't tweak upwards something or other. So that we have to clear out. As a commission, I think we need to talk to all departments and say, look, we cannot officially by law, by state law, have a budget that is that is deliberately with a, with a deficit in it, you know, just to lower the rates as you point out that we can't do that legally, we can't. And like Commissioner Tonella pointed out, we are zero sum, zero sum, and we've been told this over and over again by the law department for years. However, they can be, I guess, a little buffer, I suppose, you know, like maybe leaving the initial thing from the MWA from 4.2. That's what the DPW put in there in the budget. Well, we could have left it alone, but they didn't. You know what I mean? That's the budget that they have.
[Dan Stoneking]: So can I just ask, please go ahead. I don't think it's going to generate anywhere near the kind of money you need to do what you need to do.
[Ron Baker]: No, no, I get that. We're talking like, but as we speak to Dave, we're looking for a 10-year plan. So Dave, if I can ask, right, if you look at our budget now, what does our budget right now say that our increase should be? 10%. 10%, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Dan, sorry. With the reduction in the MWRA with no buffer whatsoever, 9%.
[Ron Baker]: 9%, that's where we should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's where we should be.
[Ron Baker]: Is that a zero-sum balance right there, Dave?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a zero-sum balance in 2024.
[Ron Baker]: There we go, that's where we should be.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Hold on, hold on.
[Dan Stoneking]: Say that again. What makes us some zero? How does not get us, what monies are we not taking then? What are you excluding?
[SPEAKER_00]: be $500,000. We can't understand that. He's asking if the revenues are going to completely meet the budget in 2024 for water and sewer, what would the rate increase need to be to do that? And the answer is 9%. I see what you're saying.
[Ron Baker]: And so where, if I may ask, where are you guys at? When I answered the meeting, I believe you guys were at 7%, right? Yes. Can we be.
[Dan Stoneking]: That's the budget for at the mayor's request of reduct of taking money out of the enterprise for 5000. and the revised down MWRA from Fred Lasky's department down, and that's what it comes to seven.
[Ron Baker]: But as we just discussed with Dave, who has crunched the numbers, he's saying the zero sum would be 9%. That's what I'm trying to say, that if we are a zero sum balance, we should be at 9%.
[Dan Stoneking]: But that would be without the reduction from the MWRA. No, that's not without. I don't know, Dave, then explain it to me, because I've lost this now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we include the $500,000 transfer, which I think we can all agree is a bad idea, but if we include that, a zero sum is 7%. If we don't include the $500,000 transfer, a zero sum is 9%. Okay, so that's, excuse me, I was wrong, so I apologize.
[Dan Stoneking]: Yeah, no, no, no, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But your point earlier, Dan, which is a good one, is that, if we offset the budget by $500,000 next year, or this year, and say next year, the budget alone increases by, I'm gonna make this up for easy math, because I'm not feeling well, an additional $500,000. We're behind a million now, right? We're behind $1 million. That's right, that's right.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: This has been ongoing. The thing to do long before next year comes is to speak up. The Water and Sewer Division needs to talk to, not us. We're just a commission. All we do is set the rates, given whatever we present the budget is, Dave sets the rates, so that's it. That's it. It begins and ends there. Can I ask you a question?
[Dan Stoneking]: and I don't even know if you guys have crunched it, what kind of money is going to be needed for the city of Medford to get our water system where you feel it should be? How much money?
[Ron Baker]: That I'll tell you right now, I don't have the answer for because we are working, that's something that we're working on. We're definitely working on, or at least my understanding is that we're working towards like a 10 year plan. So we know what the rates are gonna be in 30, 35. You know what I mean? I'm sorry, 20, 30.
[Dan Stoneking]: Look at the 10 year horizon.
[Ron Baker]: And I don't think we've done that yet. Okay.
[Dan Stoneking]: Well, I don't know how much per mile it costs to replace.
[Ron Baker]: My understanding that currently we're at 1.5 to replace a mile. And how many miles need to be replaced? 123, I think.
[Dan Stoneking]: We're looking at 120, that's in today's price.
[Ron Baker]: Today's price is right, that's true. But we also have a plan on top of that, which is to, and that's something that I'm working with Tim on, is to start bringing some of what we can handle in-house, in-house. Because if we do that, regardless of the fact that you're hiring more people and they have pensions, it's still less for us to do it in-house. So we can reduce the impact and we can reduce the amount of money we need to ultimately get the city where it needs to be. You know what I mean?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, so Dave, both Dave and Dan. Are you preaching to the choir, obviously, you know, but you have to both of you have to understand the finality of who we are, what we can or cannot do. There is no way to take that 500 out of there. For us, we don't have the authority to go back to the mayor and the council and say, take this 500 and shove it. We have no such authority. What this year is this year, next year, long before, if you want our support, we will echo what you feel. You put it in writing, you write to the mayor, you write to the council, you go to the council, we'll be there with the commission and say, yes, we certainly support whatever they're saying. That's about all we can do because we understand the problems of the thing. But infrastructure is such that it has to go beyond just rates. It isn't just about rates. There isn't going to be enough money.
[Ron Baker]: We should be bringing the public into this kind of information and letting them know as well.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: And there's a lot of issue, just like the $500,000 that they're not paying for the utility that they're using, water and sewer using. That has to stop. That has to be in the budget. This way, you would have the 9% now instead of 7% if that money had been paid in already. It wouldn't be coming out of the enterprise. It would be coming out of where it's supposed to. have to be addressed back to the city.
[Ron Baker]: I understand.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: And we don't have the authority to do that. We can only support what you guys put together.
[Ron Baker]: And it's not even what we're trying to do is not even just bring more people on so we can do in-house water main relays. I mean, we are already working on you know, getting the hydrants color-coded, so that when the fire department goes out, they know right away how many hydrants they can hook up to, which ones they can hook up to, and they can put a fire out without, you know, hopefully faster than they can right now. You know, I mean, we have, I have so many plans for this department, but I mean, it costs money. Go ahead, please.
[Dan Stoneking]: Not all hydrants are accessible by the fire department?
[Ron Baker]: I didn't know that. So it's not that they're not accessible, right? What it is, is so as our water mains need to be replaced, what you have is like, say a dead end, for example, if you have a fire on a dead end, chances are that dead end is a six inch water main and it's 70 to 100 years old. So now the inside of the pipe is choked down to three inches. They go to hook up to that hydrant at the end of the dead end. and not getting much water out of that. But if they look, if we can, what we do is we fire flow each hydrant. We can calculate how much water we can gain from that hydrant. So they look at the dead end and it's painted red. That means they can't get much out of it. But they look just at the next road over and it's painted blue. Instead of wasting their time with that red hydrant, they're hopping on the blue one.
[Dan Stoneking]: And that could cost lives, yeah.
[Ron Baker]: It's good stuff, it's all good stuff. But it also costs money, you know. Of course.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: And that's not a great issue. You know, that is an infrastructure and everything else that has to be presented to the council, the mayor.
[Dan Stoneking]: My gut is telling me as a resident from all my life and fourth generation here, I think this is a debt exclusion issue. And I think if the people in the city are informed that we're fifth oldest town in the United States, our piping system is old and it needs to be repaired. we need to make a vote on a ballot saying we've got to propose a 10 year plan and this is what we need. And we've got to pay more taxes, property tax, or we're going to make Flint, Michigan look like a sprinkler party.
[Ron Baker]: Flint, Michigan, Triah, Jackson, Mississippi. They can't supply water to their residents right now. Not able to.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: So what we can do as a commission going forward, and we'll try to have a meeting perhaps just the commission, well, whoever's gonna be the secretary, Ronnie and so on, to talk to the law department of the city of Manfred to see just exactly, given the bylaws that we have in terms of what we can and cannot do, if we can, above and beyond what the budget is, for example, I don't know, you got the new budget over here, whatever it is?
[Dan Stoneking]: It's not the budget, I don't have the budget.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you are allowed to do that. Almost every other of my clients that I work with that does long-term financial planning takes that into consideration. They look at what their rates need to be in year 1 and also what they need to be in year 5 and potentially what they need to be in year 10. They do their best to smooth out the increases on an annual basis. You're not waiting until you get to say year 6 in a forecast, and you have to have a double-digit increase, it's better to have more programmatic increases annually. What gets built into the budget is a reserve fund contribution to slowly build up the rates over time, such that when you get to year 5 or year 10, your revenue is already built up to be able to support the revenue requirements or the total budget in that year. That's a incredibly common procedure.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yes, thank you. And I understand that, but we will need the law department to tell us in writing that that's exactly what we can do. We're not going to do it just because, you know, some of the places you think the bylaws could be different than us.
[Dan Stoneking]: So and so what's the purpose that you're explaining? What's the purpose of the enterprise fund? What's the purpose of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand the question.
[Dan Stoneking]: Every town and city, I guess, and it's overseen by someone at the state level, that this enterprise fund is supposed to be used for projects that I believe Dan is pointing out. Why don't they just go raid the enterprise fund instead of us doing this thing? I'm not sure is right, but we'll find out from the legal department.
[Ron Baker]: I mean, the way I look at it, the enterprise fund is really not that helpful.
[Dan Stoneking]: What I need is for $5 million right now, why wouldn't they just go before the city council and say, look, we want to take $5 million out of the enterprise fund to get you up and running this because, because eventually the money you run out of money.
[Ron Baker]: Yeah. Eventually the money runs out. We need income is what we need. Um, I mean, if I, if I, Go ahead, Ron, please.
[Dan Stoneking]: Don't forget that the city also loves the A-plus rating on bonding that we have from that enterprise account. Exactly. They want to keep that A-plus bonding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way that you keep that is by having debt service coverage, so having more revenue than is necessary to be able to support your debt service coverage and also having money in reserve fund balances. And if you were just to pluck out $5 million and give that to Dan, although I'm sure he'd be happy with it in year one, he's not going to be happy about it in year two through 10 when that completely dries up and then you need a higher rate increase than you would have otherwise. That money will eventually run out. It's not a perpetual source.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yes, you're absolutely right. And here's the thing. Like Ronnie just pointed out and Commissioner, the city has saved a ton of money because of the rating, you know, the movies and so on and so forth, because that enterprise fund. They would not like to lose. Now, the thing is that also, that enterprise fund was created by the money that's been collected over the years by Ronnie, thank God, you know, and so on and so forth, these efforts to put together the people that hadn't been paying. When I got onto this commission, we were at six and a half million in the hole. The city of Metro was six and a half million in deficit in the water and sewer, whatever the hell it was. It took us almost three years to get beyond the zero and then start coming up by being able to collect the money And before Ronnie came on, about two, almost two and a half years after I got into this thing, I was a different chair at the time and so on. We had to do all these things by hand and then God bless him, you know, the computers came in and he, you know, and we were able to collect five, 600,000 from Tufts University, 300,000, you know what I mean? And this money has been retrieved, that's why it's sitting there.
[Ron Baker]: I'll tell you what too, Dominic, that's commendable, but while you were doing that, whoever's running the department has neglected the system unfortunately so you're fighting against somebody who wasn't doing what they needed to do and you guys are so i mean there has not been a steady flushing program in this city from what i've been told ever that is insane dan your predecessor
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: God rest his soul. He was a wonderful guy, but apparently he didn't do a lot of the stuff that you say you want to do, or should have been done over the years. It's not us.
[Ron Baker]: I mean, that's not- I've explained to you the situation. I appreciate, I mean, you guys have obviously worked extremely hard, but unfortunately not everybody has, and that's why we're in the situation we're in.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, I mean, and hopefully you and Tim and so on and so forth, because I had a long discussion with him about this 10-year plan. I think it's a great thing to put together. And as soon as you do, we as a commission will support you verbally, in writing, in any way you want us to support you. But we can't affect it. We can only support what you think, because we think it's right. Not that we have the law on our side that says, hey, we're the commission, and this is what you've got to do, City of Metro. We have no such power. You know, we've been told this a hundred different times already.
[Ron Baker]: So it's not like, you know, I would suggest that next year, maybe we put up a fight if they do this retained earnings prep again, because yeah, we can go to city hall.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: If you guys want to go to city hall at the meeting, because they did it, you know, I thought that you guys might've wanted to do that this year. We would have come with you if you wanted to, but you know, I wish we had a lawyer in house.
[Dan Stoneking]: I don't know how KP law we can involve with them. I don't know that. If they feel, and I know Dave, you're saying that other towns and cities do it. I mean, we're under the impression, at least I have, and I haven't been on three and a half years. If we have the go-ahead to say we can increase these rates to generate monies to go towards a specific program or project, and it's perfectly legal, I'm on board. But right now, that's not how I'm interpreting my commission
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: At this point, so yeah, we've been told by the law department for years and years and years, some zero budget, whatever is presented to you by the Council of the Council, that's what you set the rates up. And that's what we've been doing for years with Dave.
[Dan Stoneking]: And Dave's been playing with the rates in the different tiers with us. We've been massaging the tier one, go up on tier three. We sort of backed off on that. Now we're kind of working with a straight increase across the board, because what happens, and it started to happen, people started to conserve, and all of a sudden, you're not getting the water on the tier two and the tier three. So now all of a sudden, you're not making your budget. So either way, conservation is my feeling.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Commissioner. What we can do, naturally, we're going to approve the rates as proposed. Now, you know, that's it, but it doesn't stop us from three months from now, revisiting this assuming that we get a law. You know, submission from from the law department says, You know what, if you want to increase that that thing by 2% you can you have the you have the authority to do that we go back and say hey you know that this fiscal 24 thing put another 2% on it, and it's and then it's a running to put into the system. I mean, But we need that. Like Commissioner Terralo says, we need to know that that is a legal thing we can't do. And if next year we can do it, we don't have to wait for next year if we don't want to.
[Dan Stoneking]: I'm pretty sure we can. Yeah, because if you give us a projection of what kind of monies need to come in over the 10-year plan, then we could meet those projections to do your project. But that's an awful lot of money. 100-some-odd million is what it sounds like.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Commissioner, it would be almost like a CPA. You know what the tax bill looks like for the city of Metro. You don't just pay for the tax on your property, whether it's residential. There's a CPA, Consumer Price Index, and so on, so what we put on there. And it's a tweak. It's like a 2%. It could become the CPA on the side of the water and sewer thing. Here's the budget, but here's 2%, or 1.5% above that. That's going to go into infrastructure. The replacement of the water system in the city. You know what I mean? a submission from the city for us to be able to do that.
[Dan Stoneking]: I lived in the city of Rockland and they were doing a meter program and every bill got a six dollar charge for the meter replacement program. So you kind of over the year you paid for your new meter. It's just that was a little way that they got the money for the program. Well, we have a meter charge. No, I'm saying, but that means that that's an additional charge to replace the meter, right? Yeah. We have a connectivity charge that just gets thrown back in. Yeah. That gets thrown back in. I think if we created like a fund where the money goes straight to it, to the project, to the project, to road rehabilitation. I like that better than screwing around with the rates, just saying, we need to put an extra 4%, like the CPA, towards a project that's gonna cost X amount of dollars each year. I mean, that sounds logical.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: I know, I know.
[Ron Baker]: Dave have have we started on a 10 year projection or is that something that you know we're working on a little later?
[SPEAKER_00]: I still owe you a proposal Dan so that that's on me for not doing that. I have probably in the past done a longer term financial plan just on my own to see kind of where we were. I don't think it had This was this preceded you. And so I don't think it had in there what really needed to get done to the system. So I think it was severely understated.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to run your point about a specific charge, although not common in the industry, they are There are examples of that typically for a meter charge or what is more common actually is as a water line replacement. So like DC water, for example, much bigger than you, but a client of mine, they wanted to replace, I think, I can't remember the amount of pipe every single year, and this is going to be $25 million a year or $5 million a year. They developed a standalone charge that was in addition to their rates, that would be on an annual basis collecting that amount of money. Now, the problem with that is, They did it on a fixed charge basis. So based on meter size, similar to your connectivity charge and fixed charges disproportionately impact low volume customers, as we all know. And so that was a little bit of a political headache, but that was a great, very stable and predictable revenue stream every single year, giving them X million of dollars that they can dedicate purely towards waterline replacement. And the reason that they did it at the time is this CFO who's no longer there, but when he was there, wanted to be more transparent on the bill about where their their monies were going and say this money is going to replace water lines and that's it.
[Dan Stoneking]: Right. Well, it would be wonderful if Fred Lasky could communicate with the towns and cities. Maybe they have a five and ten year rate increase projection that we could work with. And then they do. They do. And maybe they have some programs where we can borrow money, zero interest, to do the kind of project that Dan's talking about. Has anyone made those kind of calls to Fred Lask and say, look, we want to borrow $20 million at zero interest.
[Ron Baker]: The only thing is when we borrow money, we have to pay it back. So where are we going to get it from is where it all begins. So we borrow the $20 million, and we slowly pay it back. And now we're behind again. We have to continue paying that while also continually replacing pipe. Well, in my opinion, and this isn't even really opinion, this is just how it should be, is that we're replacing three miles of pipe indefinitely, three to four miles of pipe indefinitely. Because by the time you're done with this program, the pipes that were replaced 20 years ago need to be replaced again. It's almost like painting the Tobin Bridge. It never stops. They go back and stop painting it again. And all these sewer lines are clay. I mean, at what point are those going to just crumble?
[Dan Stoneking]: That was one of the things that I was going to bring up. Mark was blown away by your numbers about 1.5 million dollars per mile. And I was going to say that's when you were thinking of that number, multiply that times two or three because you haven't even talked about sewer. Storm drain either.
[Ron Baker]: Storm drain either. I don't manage storm drain, so I don't care. I have other things to worry about, but I mean, it's still there. It's still something that needs to be thought about by somebody.
[Dan Stoneking]: If you have collapsed sewer pipes, you're taking on more water, we're getting billed more, leaving the city.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: So, Dave, Dan, when would you and Tim McGibbon and so on and so forth, and the Water and Soil Division would like to get together to make these proposals or approach the city itself on these issues. Not us, because we know what you're talking about, but the city needs to be made aware, publicly made aware of this stuff. At one of their meetings, the council meetings, where you have a nice little agenda, you can present the worries that, you know, spelled out, the money, and yeah, that sort of thing. We'll be there, certainly. There's a commission, we'll be there to support you.
[Ron Baker]: I'm gonna be honest with you, we've already started. But I don't know, I can only go so far. I can't, just like you guys, I guess you can only go so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: My suggestion would be, we knew we weren't going to get this done for fiscal year 2024. This will be a fiscal year 2025 initiative. My suggestion would be over the next five to six months, Um, I'll work with Dan and and Tim and we'll develop what we think is a reasonable 10 year plan. Okay, provide that information to this commission. And then I think that needs to be a agenda item on a city council meeting where we walk through what our forecast looks like, why it looks like it does, what's going to happen to this system if we don't reinvest money in the way that we're forecasting, water quality issues, water reliability issues, whatever that might be, and Dan, that's in your wheelhouse, so I'll work with you on that, but we'll put together a very well thought out presentation that hopefully doesn't mean that people are going to like it, but they'll understand the need for it. It'll be about six months in advance of when rates need to go into effect for fiscal year 2025. And at that point, We can have public meetings, we can get input from folks, we can continue that education campaign. That'll give you commissioners time to talk to the legal folks and make sure you feel comfortable with what I already know is acceptable, but I understand in your role, you wanna confirm that. That would be my suggestion.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: We obviously don't have the technical knowledge to be able to speak at the City Hall. That would have to come from Tim McGiven, it would have to come from you, Dave, Dan, I say, so on, so forth, and we'll be there to support that sort of thing. We don't have the venue, we don't have the expertise to talk about these so-called you know, infrastructure, blah, blah, blah. So, but we'll be there to support every minute of it.
[Ron Baker]: I mean, I'm on board. I can go on and on about this stuff. Well, that's right.
[Dan Stoneking]: So you make the presentation, we'll be right there in back of you to say yes. One thing we should do, the 500K seems like it's going to go into effect this year. I think that either Dan, maybe you could come up with a letter to the commission and maybe they could sign off on it to say, let's stop. taking money out of retained earnings to bandaid the rates going forward. You know, maybe it's a commission letter to the councilors, the mayor saying, we don't wanna do this anymore because it's making more problems down the line. It just, that would perpetuate, but that would at least say, hey, look, We warned you guys about this. If it comes down the pipeline that you want us to raise at 500K, you're going against our best recommendation as the Water and Sewer Commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's part of the discussion. So typically in these presentations, which are either given by just me, or I think in this instance, it's gonna be a bit more of a robust presentation. It would come in tandem from myself and Dan. But part of that discussion, when we're looking at the forecast, It's. Part of that is looking at the retained earnings balance and making a recommendation as to why you want to keep it at a certain level. If we continue to draw it down, it'll show at a point that's going to go negative and we can't allow that to happen, or it's going to get to a point that's below a target and it's going to reduce our bond rating. You don't want that to happen either. That's going to be part of that recommendation. Our recommendation is to maintain where you are and have revenues coming in on an annual basis that are fully sufficient to support that revenue requirement. And then I think I give these presentations held over the last three months. I've given almost every single night. That's the conversation in tandem with Dan, with the technical expertise and the CIP, the engineering side of things. And I think if we can get you on board as commissioners to say, we support this plan, that will go a long way.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yes, of course we will. So to get back to the connectivity fee and so on and so forth, just to clarify, that money that comes in, that is revenue, correct, Ronnie? That's a simple grant, it goes right into the budget, just like the rates that come in when people pay a bill, that's it. It's not set aside to answer your question, because I know you have a question.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, that just means money in credit to pay bills.
[SPEAKER_10]: go towards right now so he can get it but it's baked in here it's all there it's right there it's right it's the bottom
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: That's what he was suggesting. That's what I suggested. But we can't do it. The city has to do that. We don't have the connectivity fee. We did. What? We approved it.
[Dan Stoneking]: But that connectivity fee, just what it was. Instead of giving a 7% increase, we put a connectivity fee in, and then we only increased it 5% because that was bringing in.
[SPEAKER_06]: Would the one replacement fee be the same thing?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: But just, hello? Just to be clear, we didn't create any of this. This was created by the city. You know, whether it's the, you know, the, the, the, the, the zero to 800, so on and so forth. We didn't create any of this stuff. I understand. I'm going to get to it in a second. So the thing is that neither the, the, the rates, the tiered rates, this was a recommendation that was made by the state that we incorporated. We were told to make a part of the bylaws and we went from a straight line thing. And we approved the thing was recommended by the mayor at the time and the city council. The same thing with the connectivity fee, meaning, well, they wanted to call it a meter fee, and everybody rebelled. Oh, you don't want to charge for a meter fee. Well, you're connected, right? We had to use terms like, well, the electric people, you know, you don't have to bring that line to charge you. When you look at the bill, there's a connectivity fee. It says, oh, that's right. Okay. They bought into it. Thank God. Otherwise, we got blowback that you cannot believe by people in the community. They want to strangle us when we weren't along here. We can't change these things on our own. We can only make these proposals, like Dave and Dan, like you say, and we can sign off on it and say, yes, we agree with Dan and DPW, we agree with the Water and Sewer Division, because this is a crucial thing to do. But other than that, there's nothing we can create ourselves and say, hey, let's put this on, we do this. We can't do that. You know it and I know it. You and Dan put together something in the next few months. We will support whatever you do in writing. We'll show up at City Hall with you, you know, when they have their meetings on Tuesday night. We need to know what would legal counsel present on behalf of the city. Yes. So anyway, anything else?
[Ron Baker]: No, Tom, that's all right. Yeah.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Thank you, Dave.
[Dan Stoneking]: Thank you for your input, as usual. But it's a shame, though, that all the various administrations take it back as long as you want. We have to get to this point in time. It is a shame. You've got a real tough job ahead of you.
[Ron Baker]: We'll see how it goes. I'm going to work hard at it. I'm not going to stop. So I love my quality drinking water. I really do. We all do. We all do.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Dave, thank you for the revised final draft, and that's what we're going to vote on in two seconds and approve and put into the budget, whatever we need to do.
[Dan Stoneking]: If there's no other thing, thank you so much. Dave, if they're going to be voting on this, which it seems like they're going to be, can you break it down into water and sewer costs for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I already have it broken down. I'll email it to you. All right, thank you.
[Dan Stoneking]: You got it.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: It is broken down.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's, that's the combined rate. Um, I, I have it.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Uh, Ronnie just needs it for billing purposes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know what you need, Ron. I'll send it to you.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: We don't, we don't have to wait for that. We can simply approve the combined and go, and then you could provide the thing for us for our records. So, um, I moved that we approve. the revised final 2024 fiscal rates. I get that. You got that already? And I vote yes. I'm in favor. So we have two out of the three, which means that it's now legal and these go into effect.
[SPEAKER_06]: Which one are you gonna sign and get to run?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Just sign one, yeah. Which one? Any one, any one. Well, mine's written. I already, you know. I need a copy for me.
[Dan Stoneking]: Let me make sure it's the updated one.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: This still says 23 on it though. Oh yeah, that's the approval. Yeah, yeah, no, sorry, sorry. Thanks again, Dave, and thank you again, Dan. So, you know, hopefully some, some, some, hopefully they're still listening. I've talked to, I've talked to a councilor Tavialo about some of these issues, and he says, yeah, yeah, I know, John, you know, but he's only one person. So I think, I think, you know, as we, maybe we need to start going to City Hall itself with something that looks like a beautiful point, you know, bullet point presentation of what the problems that are out there and how to fix it. And then the second, third time, and the fourth, and by the fifth or sixth time that we go before that council, people listening have said, oh my God, the city needs to do something about this. And then when they hear what it's going to cost them, you're going to see them come to City Hall. So that's what we have to fight. That's what we have to get into.
[Ron Baker]: Well, I'm here for it.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: I know. I know. And we give you a lot. Oh, yes, I'm sure.
[Ron Baker]: All right. Well, thank you, gentlemen.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. What do you put over here for an option to something? I just, this is close to a run. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, yeah. Sorry. You can close that. Come on.
[Dan Stoneking]: Do you guys have anything else? Do you have anything? By the way, do we have to make a motion to approve these minutes? Yeah, hold on. Yes, you can make a motion. I'll support it. I read it. I make a motion to support the minutes of the meeting.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: I second and approve.
[Dan Stoneking]: So the minutes have been approved from the last meeting. What's going on here with this 1742? Did we ever do this one? No, that's pseudo. We did that one. There's nothing else? That was the leak.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Well, that's the one for the meter. You're going to send that out?
[Dan Stoneking]: Um, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna contact, I'm gonna, I was gonna contact.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, and then, but the next time, if we get an opinion on that meter, whatever it is, we'll try to figure something out.
[Dan Stoneking]: Well, whatever, you know, but at least we're not gonna stop.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, but, but at least we'll have something that says, look, there's nothing wrong with this meter. If anything, you were saving money all these years because this meter was under, under reported. Oh, and we got to run it. We got to get in touch with, uh, with, uh, Tim and make sure that, that the bylaws, let's go on because that it reflects the fact that it's only for one, two, three families and not meters, second meters, you know what I mean?
[Dan Stoneking]: I'll find that and move. Because she looked at it on the website. I'll just make an observation here. You're thinking right now, Souter is the one. isn't the meter, Souter is the one with the big break with the $18,000 charge. Souter is the big break, not the meter. That's not here, right? No.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, I gave it to you.
[Dan Stoneking]: Oh, what is it? It should be a copy, he requested. Souter is the one we're trying to get.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's 1742.
[Dan Stoneking]: Okay, so this is the meter.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, 1725. Oh, 1725, sorry.
[Dan Stoneking]: So when would that meter go up? I'm texting the guy from the media company right now. And how long does it take to get to them? And then you'll contact them and let them know the results.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: And then you can invite them to the next meeting that we have. And then they'll be told what's what.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, OK.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: You just don't communicate with them. Last time.
[Dan Stoneking]: That should be done by the commission. I haven't gone to one of these yet. I haven't gone to a meeting. Oh, OK. Well, Last time, it was the one over here on High Street, where the guy had that $180,000 bill. You guys denied him unless the meter came back faulty.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Right, so let's find out what this meter does.
[SPEAKER_10]: But when was that? I wasn't here. I don't remember $180,000. No, $160,000. No, you were not here.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, no, he was, he was. It was like a couple months ago. No.
[Dan Stoneking]: What are you talking about? I don't even know. Yeah, yeah, the guy who's a faulty. Who are you talking about? Who's this? I don't remember. 5 High Street. Yeah. Oh, 5 High Street. So what was he trying to, what was his argument? That we said the meter was faulty. Okay. And what happened? He didn't go along? No, it did. The meter failed at 95% under recording. Right. And he just stopped because I said, I said, I said the nine, I said the meter passed and the meter passed inspection. You know, so you communicated with them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever you want to do with this cup of $150 charge. Yeah, I'll just charge them on the next bill when they know they're paying that was very only doesn't come back faulty, then we come across and you would take care of it.
[Dan Stoneking]: If the meter came back faulty, we pay, right? If it comes back, it's working, they pay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, right. I mean, it comes back. Did we?
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: Okay. I mean, here's the thing. No, he wants the way we did say that, but you know, I said, look at, because they had a big friggin look, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. My, my suggestion would be that we will, I'll make a motion to waive it. But the thing is going forward. I think it's important to put this thing on record. Well, the meter field is in that, and you called it, but I think that needs to be brought to the commission and needs to go into the record, if that is the case in the minutes. I think I did. You know what I mean? I think I did bring it. I don't remember anything. I'm sure it's not in the minutes. Are we still talking about High Street now? Yes, 5 High Street. That's what I said.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I don't have it. 5 High Street.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: I don't remember it. I do remember that, you know, something. When did they come in? I'm sure it's not reflected in the minutes. But I agree it should be in our records that he was he was part of the agenda, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
[Dan Stoneking]: He backed off. Yeah. Well, but no, I know he's trying to give it to cover your own keys. So, you know, I talked to you about this on the phone. You called me and I and it was an appeal of a leak. And you said we don't abate for leaks. And then we tested the meter and it still said it didn't come back in his favor.
[I5lIrWN8Vh8_SPEAKER_15]: There's so many things. You remember these things because it's in your wheelhouse. I can't remember such things. You know what I mean? This is why it's important for us to actually make sure that it's on the agenda and put it on the agenda, whatever you said, and then it's recorded and that's the end of it. And this is right here. And there's nothing wrong with you telling them to say, hey, this thing failed, but you can still, we need to actually record it at a legal meeting of the commission. Do you agree, Commissioner? I agree. No, I know where you're going with this. No, no, no, no. I don't want him to get in trouble either and say, hey, well, I said this and that. Then they go after him. Drop the bid. Hey, can you shut that computer?
[SPEAKER_12]: It's still recording.