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Youngstown board approves a $6.69 million contract to buy 52,000 water meters
YOUNGSTOWN
The board of control authorized a $6.69 million contract to purchase about 52,000 water meters.
The meter-replacement project at all city water customers will start later this year and is expected to finish in 2020, said Water Commissioner Harry L. Johnson III.
The last meter-replacement project was in 1988, and the meters are supposed to last about 15 years, Johnson said.
The contract, approved Thursday by the board, is with Senus, based in Raleigh, N.C.
The city’s water customers are in Youngstown, Boardman, Liberty and Canfield.
About 3,000 customers will get new water meters this year with plans to increase that number – about 9,000 to 10,000 annually – in future years.
When the project is done, the city will no longer need water-meter readers, who travel to the meters, as that work will be done at the water department, Johnson said.
The city typically has nine water meter readers, and currently has six, he said.
“Over the time we’ll take to change from one system to the other, we expect enough water department workers to retire,” said Eugene Leson Jr., the department’s chief engineer.
The city also will hire about eight to 10 meter installers, a supervisor and one or two office staff support workers, Leson said. All will be temporary until the work is done, he said.
There isn’t a water-rate increase to pay for the project as the city had already raised the rate by 8.75 percent annually for five years, ending last year, to fund it. Compared with 2009, the year before the increase, the water department is collecting about $2 million more annually in water fees now.
Also Thursday, the board approved paying its insurance company for legal fees to HCC Public Risk Claim Service, its insurance company. The city has a $50,000 deductible.
The biggest expenses were for legal fees related to two federal lawsuits the city won.
The city paid $38,956 for legal fees related to a claim filed in 2011 by Gerald Johnson of Youngstown that while he was in police custody officers used physical force. A judge dismissed the case in January 2013.
The claim by Johnson stems from his 2010 arrest for the armed robbery of a truck driver. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011 on counts of aggravated robbery, felonious assault and illegal possession of a weapon.
The other involved a claim by Arian O’Connor, who sued several Youngstown and Akron police officers claiming malicious prosecution, false arrest and excessive bail in violation of his constitutional rights. The lawsuit was filed in 2010 and dismissed in 2013. Legal fees for the city for this case were $29,341.
O’Connor of Youngstown filed the lawsuit related to his indictment in Summit County in 2007 on charges he kidnapped and killed an Akron man six years prior. He was arrested in Youngstown. A judge dismissed the case in 2008.
The board also approved the city’s health insurance contract that includes having workers pay medical deductibles for the first time and gives options as to cost and coverage of plans.