TRINITY — The Trinity City Council discussed several matters affecting the water department, including non-payment of bills and credits offered to certain people connected with the city.
At the Thursday meeting, City Manager Tracy Hutto reported that the city had shut off water service to the Deer Run subdivision due to non-payment.
Hutto said the subdivision buys water from the city, and in turn the residents pay subdivision. The city provides no meters for individual accounts.
However, the subdivision owners have not paid for the water and are past due more than $15,000, which includes late fees. Hutto said they did receive a partial payment in January, but nothing since, and it was not fair for the taxpayers and account holders in Trinity to subsidize water use for Deer Run.
The city waited to suspend service as there was litigation between the families that owned the subdivision; the property owners association there also tried to get residents to raise funds.
Hutto said that after initially cutting water delivery off, they are turning delivery on twice a day for a total of four hours. Mayor Billy Goodin said the city is not made up of monsters who want to treat people bad, but bills need to be paid.
Relatedly, there was discussion about several resolutions that allowed elected officials and their widows, city employees, and volunteer and retired firefighters and their widows to receive credits for water, sewer and trash collection services.
Goodin said it’s in the city’s best fiscal interest to discontinue those credits, particularly since the city’s losses annually on water service runs about $500,000.
“When we’re losing money, why are we giving things away?” he said. “We need to look at every avenue for revenue production, which takes the burden off of property owners (through taxes).”
Hutto said that the credits amount to about $70,000 a year.
Council member Scott Womack said that in order to bring the city into the current millennium, they need to get rid of these kinds of handshake deals; however, Council Member Bubba Smith said he was concerned about some of the older people receiving those credits, and proposed a longer discussion regarding a grandfather clause.
Hutto also said that it needed to get discontinued because it was not legal, according to the state.
The council took no action, but will take the matter up in the May meeting.
