City officials did not see eye to eye when discussing a proposal for performance services for a proposed capital improvement plan at the Water and Sewer Committee meeting Tuesday. 

At the meeting, Warren Nevad from MTAS and Tennessee Renewable Energy and Economic Development Council explained the ways his company found to help the city with minimal impact. The main focus was a new roof for the Water Department on Bell St. 

“We looked at, are there really quick return on investment, short payback items we can implement that we can then leverage the excess savings over a period of time to fund this roof. What we found was two of those pieces. One was water meters. So, you guys already have some water meter infrastructure in place, but we thought there was a way to increase that revenue. So we think a minimal increase on the revenue, and the roof will actually fully fund itself,” said Nevad.

He explained that by putting new water meters in and increasing their accuracy it would mean the residents would be actually paying for the true amount of water they are consuming. 

“We believe a small, five percent revenue increase is very feasible and attainable, but using that five percent revenue increase will actually fully fund not only the metering infrastructure, they will pay for themselves, but it will also fund the full roof replacement,” said Nevad.

Alderman Stacey Harvey felt he was not prepared to make a decision upon hearing this information for the first time. 

“There are several bits of information that are going to have to be absorbed. I’m not prepared at this time to even take any action at all on it. We made that mistake on a damn ice rink across the street and I’m not going to do that on a multi-million dollar project,” said Harvey.

“You would not be committing to that project,” explained Nevad.

“I’m not going to commit to it,” said Harvey.

“I wanted to give you a proposal plan for how you could quickly and cost effectively get a new roof on the water department. Again this next phase that I would suggest to you guys does not commit you to putting a new route and does not commit you to spending millions of dollars,” said Nevad. 

“This to me seems like we are taking advantage of a situation for our benefit, but we are not giving the benefit to the taxpayer,” said Harvey. “We’re basically going to scrape the money to pay for this roof off the water and sewer customers that we have here.”

“You could put it that way, but that is not what we are trying to do,” said City Administrator Nolan Ming.

“I understand that is not what we are trying to do,” said Harvey. “I’m not saying anybody is trying to do that. I am just saying if you look at it from a logical standpoint, our loss of product is factored into our cost of doing business. If we reduce the volume of material that we lose, our cost of doing business is going down which means we are going to have increased margins. When we have increased margins that is effectively an increase in rate at that point and time.” 

Nevad added that the meters in place are scientifically proven to degrade in accuracy about a half percent a year starting at year five. He said the meters will lose water the longer they stay in place. Harvey clarified that he was not saying more accurate meters were a bad thing, he just thinks the way of going about getting new ones is not looking out for taxpayers. 

“I just have a bit of a moral issue personally with thinking we could be more accurate and that we can scrape some money off of the taxpayers for that to fund a roof,” said Harvey.

“That is not the intent. I take exception to you saying that,” said Ming.

“Well, I don’t care,” said Harvey.

“Thank you,” replied Ming.

“I’m a representative of the people,” added Harvey.

“That’s right. Thank you,” said Ming.

“I am a representative of the people,” added Harvey again.

“We appreciate that,” said Ming.

“You’re very welcome. It’s exactly why I’m here, but that is the way that it seems. I am saying that financial market right there, just that on its surface as I see it right now, seemed to be a way. Instead of grabbing onto that revenue, we could release some of that revenue back to people in this community that really are affected by it,” said Harvey.

“You’re right, and that is a separate conversation. You could do both,” said Ming.

“That’s great, but this conversation is about using that revenue for one purpose. I’m bringing the counter to that note. That’s exactly what I am doing,” said Harvey.

“Well, thank you,” said Ming again.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. If you don’t like it, I’m sorry,” said Harvey.

“I didn’t ask you,” said Ming.

“Excuse me?” asked Harvey.

“I mean, I don’t care if you care if I like it or not,” said Ming.

“Well that’s good. So at this point in time I don’t need any more input from you,” said Harvey. 

Nevad said, “My intent was to show you what is possible with a minimal, what I think is a minimal, revenue increase. I will be honest with you from my own perspective, I don’t want to get something that I am not paying for. If I am consuming 100 gallons of water and the city of Franklin will still be charging me for 90, I would feel like I’m getting something over on the city. So I would want to pay for the actual amount that I am using. So I think there is two ways to look at it, but I think there is a better way to look at it from both sides honestly and say if we just simply charge what is consumed even if it is a little more at the end of the day.” 

No action on the proposal was taken during this meeting.