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THE CITIZEN WWW.READTHECITIZEN.COM DECEMBER 20,; '?-'•� ^ars ."� +'! Laf �°`'�'. kc�7' {.3-�� IS 'And your re un WiH be . . $880�684993'F by Deb Barnes,Editor flows from July 1, 2008 to ter way of estimating our emailed HUGO — It's not June 30, 2009), a$518,000 flows. (MCES) decided to sug- every day you get a check charge.In 2011,the bill was they needed to check some gest that for almost $900,000 in the $633,000. of their own systems." refunds mail—at least,one you can In a followup interview MCES officials found are due to cash. There is such a check with The Citizen at the the meter at the Forest Lake city rat: in the pipeline for the city time, Public Works Direc- border wasn't working cor- payers. of Hugo.The city of Forest for Scott Anderson said he rectly. S o Lake will receive a whop- was perplexed that calcu- Kennedy said, "We all of us ping$1.3 million. lated sewage flows billed to were getting to the point have been Kennedy The Metropolitan the city exceeded munici- where we were just about o v e r - Council Environmental pal groundwater pumping ready to refine our flow charged and the city gets Services payment to Hugo quantities.He said it didn't estimates. They called us the money?" wrote Terri represents sewage over- make sense,especially since up and said, `Hold the Lavalle of Hugo. "I think charges paid by the city during the same time pe- phone!'" we that were overcharged, for the billing period from riod, more than 200 Hugo Last week, Otkin said, (and) should be reim- 2006-2011 and also in- homes were unoccupied "He kept telling me, 'We're bursed." dudes an adjustment for due to foreclosures and the going to get some money n sai that not all 2012 in the amount of number of building permits back from the Met Council, of the cost increases paid $98,872.09. issued had plunged. we're just figuring out how to MCES were passed on The payment, which The Citizen contacted much' to Hugo customers."Those includes interest, will be MCES and the city engi- "I'm thinking 10 grand, years that we had losses in deposited in the city's water neer to find out more. 20 grand, and all of a sud- the sewer fund, we were and sewer utility fund. Engineer Jay Kennedy den,here came this number. managing that out of the It all started in 2011 said the questions raised And I said,"WHAT??'" monies we had in reserve. when MCES proposed a 22 some flags, and he began Kennedy said, "The "We're going to be percent sewage rate hike, to pursue the matter with good news is, now that the looking at the rate structure which didn't sit kindly with MCES. "(They) had been Met Council found the er- for consumers in March:he Hugo Finance Director estimating our flows for ror with the Forest Lake said. "If there's a possibility Ron Orkin. a number of years mostly ..acter and has repaired that, we can lower the rate,that's Orkin's presentation because the meters on each the city of Hugo will now something we're going to to council showed that in end of town were reading pay for sewage flows based have to look at." 2010, MCES billed the so close together, he said. on actual metering rather Comments on our story? city for 262 million gal- "We went through the ex- than flow estimates." Email citizen@presspubs. lons of wastewater (for ercise of coming up a bet- One Citizen reader com or call 651-407-1226.