Byrdstown Officials making two changes to the city water policy as the town modernizes its technology.
Byrdstown Mayor Sam Gibson said the city now has radio-read meters, which will make billing more efficient. Gibson said the city used to manually read water meters.
“We had one individual that done all the readings,” Gibson said. “And he would start at the A book and go all the way through Z reading those things. There were like 20-something books that they’d go through, and it would take, like I said, three and a half weeks to do that.”
The other revision to Byrdstown’s water policy allows the Mayor to make discretionary tweaks in special or emergency situations.
“If somebody’s house burns and they’re paying a water bill and they move over to another house, do we continue to charge them a hookup fee when they’re already paying a water bill?” Gibson said. “Little things like that where the policy would say, ‘Yeah, you do,’ I don’t think so. In a unique circumstance, we should be able to look at it and use a little common sense and say, “no, that’s not right.”
Gibson said each situation would be individually documented and approved by the Mayor. Gibson said the tweaks will modernize the policy.
“Once it all gets changed over, [customers] will find it’s more consistent,” Gibson said. “And that’s pretty much it. The bills are still going to be pretty much the same way.”
In addition, Gibson said a credit card system is now a part of billing.
