Topics will be water bills and old city hall
By Barb Pert Templeton
Residents in Marine City who want to learn more about their water and sewer bills or want to share their opinions on what should be done with old city hall will have a chance to do both soon.
At the Aug. 21 meeting of the city commission City Manager Michael Reaves said one of the city’s goals was to provide good communication to residents. He said the recent launch of the live presentations of the commission meetings is a good example of meeting that goal.
He said another piece they talked about was hosting some informational townhalls for residents based on a variety of subjects.
The city has two such townhalls coming up in the near future that Reaves said residents should be interested in attending.
The first meeting is set for Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 6:30 p.m. in the commission chambers and the topic will be water and sewer.
The building and property at 300 Broadway in Marine City opened as the city hall in 1884.
“How do you read your water bill? What does your water bill mean? What does it mean when we charge you a unit? What is a ready-to-serve?” Reaves said.
While the city staff does a great job trying to explain things to people, many still don’t know, he said.
“You’d be surprised by how many people are really confused by their water bill,” Reaves said.
The second piece of the first townhall will talk about how water and sewer rates are set with the assistance of the Michigan Rural Water Association. They will do a short presentation on how water and sewer rates are set and what the science is behind it.
“Bring out the coin and flip it? Or bring out the genie here, how is it done, what are the mechanics behind it?” Reaves said, noting then people will have an understanding of how things work.
He said most people don’t understand that there are a lot of different factors that go into how water and sewer rates are set.
“Some of that information is, candidly, out of your control, and people don’t understand that when you don’t make repairs in terms of infrastructure issues all of that effects that water and sewer rate or your water and sewer bill,” Reaves said.
Next would be understanding what consumers are actually paying for and what happens when the funding falls short.
Marine City Manager Michael Reaves.
“I think we’re a case study for that type of thing and I think it’ll help educate the citizens, we’ll have staff available to answer questions it’ll be pretty much in an informal basis,” Reaves said.
The city manager noted that the information will be basic so people understand, he won’t be showing off 68-page excel spreadsheet.
“It’ll be short and sweet, we’ll keep it brief but try to cover the basics,” Reaves said.
Townhall on 300 Broadway
The next townhall will be Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 6:30 p.m. with the topic being 300 Broadway which is old city hall.
“Everybody wants to talk about 300 Broadway so let’s have a townhall discussion about 300 Broadway,” Reaves said.
The idea is to invite different groups in who want to discuss the facility and allow them a presentation time to talk about the topic.
Reaves said he may add in some things he knows about the building too.
“We’ll talk about the buildings current shape and some issues were facing now and what we’re going to face going into the winter,” Reaves said. “Because I still don’t think it’s clear in the community what the shape of the building is and what it takes to put it into shape.”
Reaves said they also need to talk about even if the money was available what is it going to be used for, what is the business plan and what is the purpose.
“I think that it’s important for everybody to at least hear everybody else out,” Reaves said.
He said there may be a person out there that has the plan that the city hasn’t heard from yet.
Commissioner Sean O’Brien asked it the city plans to show the townhalls live and he was told yes. He said while that’s great, having citizen come to the meeting in person would be even better.
“It’s going to be hard for us to hear you from your living room so please get in here for those, we need to hear your voices on both of these townhalls,” O’Brien said.
Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick said people can also email or drop a letter at city hall with their thoughts on the subjects.
