Council discusses meter reading system

The Kimball City Council discussed the purchase of a new meter reading system last week in its first meeting of the new fiscal year.

“Several of you have asked me to kind of bring back to the council every month or so a specific capital improvement item on our CIP list and discuss it in much more detail than the short discussions we had when we met with the Board of Public Works in unison,” City Administrator Daniel Ortiz said. “Last month, I think actually probably back in August, um, I went before the Board of Public Works to kind of share with them an experience I had shadowing Paul Quicke.”

Ortiz demonstrated, with a slide show, the difficulty meter readers have finding and reading water and electric meters, some of which are disguised and others are covered with brush or debris.

Additionally, the city has just one of each of the tools necessary to read the meters. If either of those breaks, there is no way to read the meters until a repair or replacement is made. Ortiz ordered two of each tool, so there is a new one to use and one in reserve.

He also stated that he has discussed the option of reading all meters in the same cycle instead of the current process of several cycles, which keeps meter readers occupied almost constantly.

Ortiz presented two options for updated reading equipment, an AMI and an AMR, each with a price tag of half a million dollars or more.

“The AMI system is roughly what I would say a much more elevated system – fully integrated, and controlled from one location, but it is also the more costly system,” Ortiz said. “It allows us to control and read all the meters wirelessly.”

Ortiz said the city is financially four to five years or more from integrating such a system, with priorities such as repairs to the water tower and the transformer at the south substation.

“I would say this is probably on the back burner, in terms of where we are going to divert our financial resources, but it certainly something we need to seriously consider down the road moving forward with,” Ortiz said.

The final agenda item was to consider the purchase of real estate during a closed session.

“The city was approached by a couple of parties on some development potential properties and if you guys are interested in hearing them, I recommend we go into closed session to discuss those and discuss whether or not and how to move forward,” Ortiz stated.

The council decided they were interested in discussing a strategy to acquire the properties and then excused themselves into closed session to discuss the possible purchase of unnamed real estate.

Council members held no discussion on the issue following the closed session and no decision was made based on their private discussion.

The council also:

- Approved a conditional use permit requested by Nancy Turner for a personal storage shed on the vacant property located at 308 S. Myrtle Street.

- Approved Mayor Keith Prunty’s appointment of Ryan McElroy to the Airport Authority Board, filling Dr. Donald Gerner’s unexpired term.

- Received a report from member John Morrison on the League of Municipalities’ annual conference.