GAS — Gas residents will pay more for water.
Council members Tuesday night approved raising the minimum charge for water, which pays for the first 1,000 cubic feet (748 gallons) consumed, from $10 to $13 for residents and $20 to $23 for nonresidents. The charge for each unit (1,000 cubic feet) above the first went up 20 cents, to $4.45 for residents and $4.86 for nonresidents.
The increase was prompted by an increase of 31 cents per unit from Iola, which supplies water to Gas.
Mayor Darrel Catron said on average monthly water bills will increase less than $4 for residential consumers.
Gas will attach a portion of insurance proceeds whenever a structure burns or is substantially damaged by a natural disaster to ensure the property is cleaned up.
Council members instructed Ross Albertini, their attorney, to draw up an enabling ordinance. Essentially, it will say that if an insurance company judges damage is 75 percent or greater, Gas will retain 10 percent or $5,000 of the insurance payout, whichever is less, until cleanup has occurred. The money then will be turned over to the property owner.
Albertini noted the ordinance would be triggered only if insurance were involved.
The Gas ordinance will be modeled after ones long established in Iola and Parsons, where Albertini practices law.
Consideration of credit card payments for utilities — water, sewer and trash — was tabled until the council’s March 11 meeting.
City Clerk Rhonda Hill said she had had “quite a few people ask about paying with credit cards.”
She said a machine to swipe cards would cost $240, but that the process could be done manually on the Internet.
“We could try it for two or three months and continue if many people want to use their cards,” Catron said.
Albertini also was asked to write a resident who has persisted in using propane to fuel a heating stove in his mobile home to discontinue the practice.
Propane use is not permitted in the city, for two reasons, Albertini said: For appearance’s sake in neighborhoods — bulky tanks are an eyesore — and because “the city doesn’t get a franchise fee from propane, as it does from the gas company.”
“If everyone in town used propane instead of (natural) gas, you’d be out a lot of money,” from loss of the fee, he noted.
Gas raises water rates
