City council has tentatively agreed to provide a utility credit of $75,000 to the Moose Jaw Exhibition Company because of a water meter malfunction over the past decade.
Council voted 6-1 to approve the recommendation during the Aug. 9 executive committee meeting. However, the motion won’t become official until council approves it during a future regular meeting.
Coun. Kim Robinson was opposed.
This issue sprung up about eight years ago and affected two water meters on the exhibition grounds, city manager Jim Puffalt explained. There was one meter that the exhibition company believed couldn’t be turned off to be replaced since it would affect the neighbourhood and adjacent businesses — including Superstore.
The organization approached city hall several times over the years to address this issue, while the faulty meter contributed to high utility bills even though the company wasn’t using the amount of water being billed.
This long outstanding file reached Puffalt’s desk when he became city manager in 2018, he continued. When Darrin Stephanson, the new director of public works and utilities, started in 2020, he and Puffalt worked to resolve the issue. They found a way to shut off the meter and remove the second one from service.
“The city had been estimating for a number of years (on water usage). We had lots of discussions back and forth but never got to the point where we could resolve it,” said Puffalt. “So we’re glad we got it back in front of council and another long-standing issue has been resolved.
“It is what it is. We charged unfairly and so it’s a fair settlement with the exhibition grounds.”
The main point with this issue is the exhibition company did not use the water but was overbilled for it, said Coun. Heather Eby. This is not water on which the municipality has lost money; council is not writing a cheque to cover the costs but is simply providing a credit.
“I think it’s fair (considering) … the exhibition company brought it to city hall’s attention but never to city council’s attention,” she added.
Robinson was opposed to the motion since the $75,000 was only an estimate of the amount of money that city hall potentially charged the exhibition company during the past eight years.
George Fowler, general manager of the Moose Jaw Exhibition Company, told the Express that the meter was in a pit in the ground while a stem protruding from the ground allowed staff to read the device. The meter started malfunctioning before it eventually stopped altogether.
The shut-off valve to the exhibition grounds was difficult to find, while a valve near Highway 2 would have shut off water to many area businesses, he continued. However, crews managed to find the correct valve and shut it off — something that likely hadn’t happened since 1973.
The replacement of the meter occurred a few years ago, but with the device being a new technology, staff monitored it to determine what the water usage was on the grounds. That is why city hall based its recommendation for a utility credit on those estimates.
“So, we gave it a period of time to get some good (yearly) quarters with what our consumption actually was,” Fowler added. “It was all done in a good spirit of co-operation.”
The next executive committee meeting is Monday, Aug. 23.
