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City raises water, sewer rates  Share
Some water and sewer customers of the City of Bridgeport will soon experience a raise in the fees of the services. The city council met in special session on Thursday, Sept. 30 to further consider the matters discussed in committee meetings. Recently, the city has been burdened with repairs and replacements of sewer pumps. According to Councilman George Zellars, it had been since 1960 that new sewer equipment was installed. To meet rising costs, Zellars made a motion to raise the service fee from $4 to $5 for the first 1,000 gallons. The motion passed 3-2 with council members Darlene Arnold and Buttons Laughlin casting the opposing votes. Councilman Ed Standley was unable to attend due to sickness. ''As hard as times are, we tried to keep it as reasonable as we could,'' Pam Hager said. ''We won't have to borrow as much from the general fund to put in the sewer fund,'' Zellars added. In another motion, the council approved the rate hike of water usage from $13- $17 for residents living outside of the city limits only. That motion passed 4-1 with Laughlin casting the opposing vote. Mayor Max Schauf noted that it had been several years since the water rates had been adjusted for those outside of the city limits. He did, however, express his opposition to the current ordinance which allows those using larger amounts of water to receive a discount, while those using lesser amounts remain at a consistent rate. ''I think that's backwards,'' Schauf said.
Schauf also addressed rumors that had been circulating concerning the water field which is under construction via the use of city employee laborers. He told the council that a representative from the labor union of Illinois had inquired about the payment of prevailing wages for laborers. Schauf assured the representative that city employees were working on the project which did not require the payment of prevailing wages. The only exception will be when work is bid out for contractors to bore across Illinois Route One and the CSX railroad to lay the pipe. Then, Schauf said the contractors will be responsible for paying the prevailing wage. Schauf added that there would not be anymore city employees hired and that the following will be performing city duties and water field construction: Steve Boatman, Travis Barker, Tom Perrin, Tony Perrin, Matt Scaggs, Nathan Ferguson, Joe Oneal, Jerry Stevenson, and Cletus ''Sam'' Laslie. To conclude the matters of the special meeting agenda, the council approved the payment of up to $148,000 to Neikirk Engineering for their work on the water project so far. The next meeting of the city council will be Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Barbara E. Allender is editor of the Bridgeport Leader.
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