The Jefferson City Council recently approved an amendment to an ordinance regarding water service and rates.

Part of the change to the ordinance is that the City will no longer charge a minimum water service fee to a property that is deemed vacant or abandoned. City Administrator Mike Palmer explains why the change was needed.

“What we want to try and do is get away from just leining the property every month for a minimum charge. It just didn’t seem right and it’s kind of piling it up. If the meter is removed, the charges stop. So essentially this ordinance says ‘the city officials can determine if the property is abandoned.’ If it is, they’ll turn it off at the street and they’ll stop the charges.”

Palmer notes that if there is a new property owner, then that individual would need to pay to have water service restored and a new meter installed. 

He says another change was adding a temporary water service charge when renting a meter. What has been the City’s practice is loaning temporary water meters for things like construction projects, where the meter is attached to a fire hydrant and then the renter would pay for the amount of water that was used.

“We’ve never really had a mechanism in place to rent the meter because it is kind of an industrial size meter. What we’ve found is sometimes in the winter the construction company may leave that meter just on the fire hydrant. Of course it freezes and it’s ruined. It’s more of a check-it-out, rental type of thing.”

Palmer adds the contractor pays a deposit to rent the meter and he believes this will protect both the City and the contractor. The amendments to the ordinance will go into effect later this month.