Kingston looks at updating water leak policy

The City of Kingston held their monthly board of aldermen meeting on Thursday. All members of council were present except for Alderman Bradley Campbell. Clerk Debby Fleming and David Bethel were present.

Clerk Debby Fleming reminded council that they needed to set a date for the city’s tax rate hearing. Council will make a decision at their next monthly meeting. Fleming also produced a letter of thanks from the Kingston School expressing their appreciation of the cooperative relationship between the city and the school. Council was invited to tour the school.

David Bethel gave the water/sewer report. He reported that letters went out to patrons with their bills on the water/sewer rate increase. He brought up the fact that back in 2001 the city adopted a leak adjustment policy. This policy allows the City of Kingston to grant an adjustment to a customer for their water bill if the customer experiences an undetected water leak. Using the customer’s average water bill, the customer would not have to pay for the excess sewer usage but will be billed for their excess water usage at $5.50 (current production rate) per 1,000 gal., billed to the nearest 100 gallons of usage. The customer’s bill will not be adjusted if the leak occurs in a place accessible by the customer (leaking toilet, faucet, etc.). The water customer must fix the leak in order to get the adjustment.

Alderman Fleming suggested customers should be billed for the full water rate to compensate for the loss of water and not just the break-even rate of $5.50. Alderman Kresse agreed with Fleming. Alderman Prothero said some elderly people may not realize they had a leak for a long time and didn’t feel it would be fair to charge the full amount. It was agreed by council to table the discussion until the next meeting.

David Bethel said that Well #1 had been fixed and is running. Bethel said the cost to fix the pump was $5,000, as it had to be pulled from the well three times before the problem was detected. Come to find out, there was a short in the power cable causing the problem. A new power cable was installed and the pump is currently pumping 82 gallons per minute.

For sewer, Bethel said he scored 100% efficiency on the DMQR proficiency test (outside testing) which he volunteered to do.

New seals were installed on the pump at the lift station.

Bethel said he did more work on the streets some ditching north of the insurance office. He has heard nothing from FEMA about disaster relief for the streets, but there was an article in the St. Joseph Press listing disaster counties and Caldwell was not included.