From the countywide….Okay why would they even bring this up right now? I”m damned glad they delayed it because to raise it when they can’t even keep things straight ….just pure ignorance. Their computer system crashes…they argue with the people who say they’ve gotten a duplicate bill for 3 months. Saying it wasn’t down that long. Hell even I know better than that. I haven’t gotten one in 3 months. The people who have the 3 months 6 week worth of service bills have PROOF on paper. They complain about people calling to ask about their bills saying that is why they can’t get anything done….people wouldn’t be calling if they didn’t have a problem in the first place. I could imagine the riot if they’d decided to go ahead and raise the rates. OMG. People are paying messed up bills if they even got a bill and they even discussed this? Makes alot of people wonder if this wasn’t a sneaky way to recieve more money? They don’t even have any accurate records??? Yes I am angry. I also noticed that this same thing (under a lil different circumstances) happened last year this time. The reason I remember so well when it happened was I had just come home from the hospital and had to plan a funeral for my trisomy 18 baby that we had just lost to find this massive bill that there was no way we could have budgeted for. Nothing will make it stand out more to someone than having a memory like that combined with it. Then here this year along with the anniversary of his death…..yep I get the utility problems thrown at me again. Does anyone else find it fishy that they convieniently had this happen about the same time? I am thinking other people may not have noticed the timing. I sure did though. This time last year was right after the big double/triple bills people were suffering from.
Tecumseh Council Again Delays Considering Utility Rate Hikes
October was the month the Tecumseh City Council had planned to revisit the idea of raising utility rates, but citizens have won another reprieve.
City Manager Jim Thompson asked the council in June to increase water, sewer and sanitation rates about 30 percent. Thompson had been warning the council for months that utility revenues are not covering the costs of providing them, and steps must be taken. While the council members generally agreed, a couple of factors made them reluctant to institute increases at that point.
For one, electric rates had been just been increased a penny per kilowatt. Secondly, a new automatic metering system had been ordered but was not yet in place, and council members wanted to see what effect the new meters would have on revenue and the customers’ bills. Many of the old meters had not been functioning properly and were presumed to be undermeasuring actual consumption.
The issue was tabled until “at least October,” after Ward 2 Council Member Jimmy Jordan said the city’s audit should be completed by then and the new meters in operation long enough to see results.
However, neither of those things has happened. Jordan said at Monday’s monthly council meeting that there still “isn’t enough information to make a decision,” so no action was taken. There was no discussion on when the subject would be addressed again.
There was, however, plenty of other action at the meeting. The council:
€ Authorized Thompson to spend up to $40,000 to upgrade the old electric substation, which he said should have been done before now but wasn’t.
€ Authorized Thompson to spend up to $31,000 on new sidewalks for the east side of Broadway between Park and Walnut. “It will clean it up and make it look nice,” the city manager said. “We’d have to spend a third or half that much just patching (after water line work),” Jordan noted.
€ Authorized Thompson to spend up to $25,000 to trim trees around electric lines in streets and alleys which might cause power outages. “This is a BandAid on an artery we have in our community,” Thompson said. He said no trimming has been done “in years” and while $25,000 won’t take care of all the problems, “we’ll get the worst ones.”
€ Discussed problems with heavy trucks traveling city streets, usually on their way to the landfill in Brooksville. Thompson said the staff has not been able to find an ordinance prohibiting such traffic, and asked the council what they wanted to do. They seemed to agree that such trucks should be banned from city streets except for pickups and deliveries. The council will consider an ordinance at a later meeting.
€ Set trick or treat time in Tecumseh at 6-9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31. That will follow the Tecumseh Chamber of Commerce’s Downtown Trick or Treat from 3:30-5 p.m.
€ Set Fall Cleanup Day for Saturday, Oct. 18. City residents may bring trash too big for their polycarts to the public works building on Sixth Street that morning, or may take it to the Brooksville landfill.
€ Approved placing a stop sign at 8th and Maple Streets beside the band building on the middle school campus.
€ Awarded a bid to Bowen Construction for a chlorination feed system at the wastewater treatment plant. Bowen’s bid, $103,000, was the lowest of four received.
