After water leaks and chaos during winter storm Uri a month ago, that has prompted the City of Navasota to grant some assistance to those who may see some very high water bills the next two months.
Julie Harper from billing with the city did a review of the upcoming bills during the meeting Monday night.
“I took the water alert form we use for the data…ran calculations for those. So we are looking at anywhere, on the average…just water alone not including gas, about $200 more than they are used to, all the way up to about $1,200. That is just on the three top days of water usage, and that is ones who had it prolonged for weeks,” said Harper. “So, we could be looking at some $1,500 to $2,000 water bills just because of leaks.”
Finance director Lance Hall presented what he and staff worked on, as far as presenting some potential assistance to folks.
“We are proposing allowing them to go into a contract up to 6 months, to stretch out the payments. Then, not charging any late fees or cut-off fees for March and April,” said Hall.
The city does remind you to report individual losses from that storm, including water, by visiting disasterassistance.gov.
City Manager Brad Stafford addressed as well why the city cannot just simply make the bills go away.
“From our standpoint, the way we looked at it, the water was treated, pumped, the whole bit, and went through meters. It is hard to wipe that off. It was an expense that was incurred, by everyone. So, it felt like if we can give plenty of time and waive penalties, and all that, it will help out,” said Stafford.
Council ultimately approved the action on utility assistance resulting from the winter storm. No late fees will be charged in march or April, and citizen’s will have the option to enter contracts to pay their bill over a up to 6 month period.
For questions or more, contact the city at 936-825-6475.