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Mounds View City Council Regular Meeting -August 28, 1995 6 the meters now so that the city will have a system that is reliable and one that will last for the next 20 to 30 years. Ms. Trade stated she has been talking with some people in other cities about this issue. When she talked with staff from New Brighton, who replaced their system one or two years ago with atouch-read system, they said the revenue does not increase noticeably due to accuracy of the water meters. The real savings are in the staff time internally. The biggest problem she feels is that the city is tying up a lot of public works staff in trying to work with uncooperative residents or those who are busy. Ms. Trade explained that Option #2 is 40% less costly and it can pay for itself without residents having a surcharge added to their quarterly water bill. In her mind, this system is the only one she can justify. Mr. Ulrich noted that at the August 21, 1995 Informational Meeting, one of the concerned residents asked if NSP would be interested in reading the city's water meters for a fee. This resident put in a lot of work and talked with several people. This was also done by Mr. Ulrich several months ago, however he was not able to get them to return his calls. • Mr. Ulrich stated he talked with Annie Hoffman who is in charge of the metro meter division of NSP who stated anything is possible in working with NSP. They are currently working on a project with the City of Cottage Grove, and depending upon the type of system they install, NSP may read the meters or have the city read the NSP meters. Mr. Ulrich stated he would like to thank the resident for his work. It is possible that if the phone read system were installed, the city could read NSP's gas and water meters. Mayor Linke briefly explained the two Options that were before the City Council for consideration. He noted that Option #1 includes a $3.00/quarter surcharge to residents. Approximately $2.68 of this would go to help pay back the loan and $.32 would go into a fund for future work on the system. Additional costs include options of going with a radio read system rather than a phone read which would cost $25.00 plus staff is proposing adding a quarterly charge (approximately $15.00) to read the meter. If a resident will not allow the change over to be made, they will be charged an additional $50.00 per quarter. MOTION/SECOND: HanknerBlanchard to recommend that the Council accept Option #1 and award the RFP from WaterPro to conduct the install the proposed water meter change out, authorize a loan from the Special Projects fund in the amount of $500,000, the utilization of $330,000 from the WAC fund to pay for the capital expense of the equipment, and transferring both amounts to account #700-3961 Transfers from other funds, amend the Water Fund Budget account #700-396' Transfers from other funds by • adding $830,000, and add $830,000 to account #700-4123-703 Water Infrastructure