Final recommendations for residential irrigation presented to council

Times Reporter

 

Members of the irrigation committee and concerned residents filled council chambers on April 6 as the committee gave their final report and recommendations. The decision won’t be made until April 15, but council wanted the committee to have a chance to present their work to them. 

“We do want it, it’s a matter of figuring out where, and how, we can get this money. That really is the bottom line,” said Mayor Steve Grajczyk before allowing the delegation to begin.

“There’s a lot of suggestions out there and it’s much appreciated but we have to figure out where this money is coming from and what kind of dollars we’re going to spend.” 

“What we have done, is develop a plan on how to go forward,” said Bob Carver, a member of the committee. 

“Basically we’re talking about a sustainable system that is user pay.”

Carver said the committee believes the onus should be on the people to drop off of the system, instead of coming out to sign up for the system as was proposed early last year. The first year of bringing irrigation back would be an assessment year, where the committee and town can determine where the system is sitting at and how much it will cost. 

Carver said they don’t want to jump into anything. They aren’t planning on major upgrades, but he said some things should be upgraded to make them more suitable to the users. The two main things they would like to see upgraded would be screening the water and convenient hours. The hours the committee recommends are from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. on a daily basis. 

“After that year, we would then look at what we would have to do to start upgrading the system,” said Carver. 

The people not being served by the system would not have to pay into it. Carver said the most they could charge would be the same price as the alternative product, potable water. He said they want to keep the price as low as possible during the assessment year because they know the improvements will be needed the following year, which will raise the costs to the users. 

“If we could do it under our costing estimates, which we think are very realistic, and in fact a lot of these are based on historical ones that the Town has actually provided, we think we can keep it down to $50 in the assessment year. That would be made up of a $25 service fee and a $25 usage fee,” said Carver. 

Carver said the committee is willing to put up a contingency fee of $50, is in addition to what the committee thinks the expenses will be. It is the committee’s way of saying if the Town is right and they are wrong about what the cost may be, then it should cover the $100 the town is currently asking for. 

“What we’re saying is, if it isn’t necessary, we don’t want you to use a contingency fee. But the following year we know the price is going to go up, we aren’t denying that but, we’re trying to make this sustainable,” said Carver. 

“The system was so bad in ’09, that we ended up giving the money back to the people who had put the money in to get usage of it,”countered Councillor Earl Best.

Carver and the committee feel they have brought forth a proposal that should be able to fit the bill for what council is looking for. 

Strathmore resident and business owner Brian Code brought up a couple of questions for council to consider. 

“People will not use potable water if it’s going to cost them more – you need to consider our financial concern,” said Code. 

“There has to be an accurate accounting of cost of potable water versus irrigation water, so people can make the correct decision for themselves. If it’s going to cost me $200 more a year to use potable water because I like to use a lot of water, guess what, I want irrigation water. But until the customer has the facts they can’t deal with this situation.”

He said if cost is an issue, why not have a local improvement tax, and make the residents pay for it. 

Grajczyk assured the residents and committee they weren’t trying to sound negative, but they had to look at everything regarding the issues in 2009, and all of the repairs that could be needed. 

“We’re as sincere about this as you are and we have to take a long hard look at it. We really are going to do that again, and then make a decision,” said Grajczyk.