City council raises wastewater rates

The public hearing on the proposal to raise rates for wastewater services was made fairly easy for Havre City Council Monday night. No one showed up to comment.

City Clerk Doug Kaercher read off two written comments and spoke of several phone calls he had received about the raise.

Concerns about people living on a fixed income were brought up and the council spoke among themselves about the issue.

“We do have concerns about the people living on fixed income,” Mayor Tim Solomon said.

Kaercher said the city has been looking at systems or grants to help with this issue, but no solution has been found yet.

He added that there is some confusion as to how the raise will work. The rates will rise an average of nearly 10 percent; but the amount will be different for everyone, depending on how much water they use, and many people may find that the increase will not affect them as much as they had expected. A notice sent out to homeowners about the rate increase may not have been clear enough.

This is the first of two rate increases. The next will take effect, if passed by council, in early 2015.

Council voted unanimously to approve the first rate increase.