LaGrange residents question higher water bills after old meter readings reviewed

LAGRANGE, Ohio (WOIO) - Frustrated residents packed a special council meeting Tuesday to ask questions about water bills that some said were hundreds of dollars higher than usual.

Julie Carpenter said her bill is normally about $120 to $130. After a new meter was installed at her home Oct. 26, she said, she received a bill for $339 that included an additional 19,300 gallons.

“I was standing in line ordering food, and my legs went numb and I got immediately nauseated,” Carpenter said. “It’s the holiday season. I have six children, two grandchildren. Like this was not a good time for that.”

Mayor Gary Kincannon said the village is in the process of replacing old water meters.

“As the company is reinstalling the new meters, they’re taking pictures of the old meters and their reading on them and so our utilities department adjusted bills and sent those bills out based on that last reading before they replaced with the new meter, that caused some people’s bills to go way up because there was a faulty reading being sent to our reader,” said Kincannon. “And so, when we got the actual reading, it was a lot higher and that’s why all the people are here tonight, a lot of them had bills that were $200 or $300 more than usual.”

The mayor said faulty readings sent to the village’s reader meant some customers had been undercharged too. He described the higher bills as a way to catch up on charges for water he said had been used.

“This was a catch up. We’re catching them up from where they were undercharged, and that’s the worst part is it was bad equipment” Mayor Kincannon said. “We feel for them. Is it partially our fault, it’s our equipment, yeah, but the water has to be paid for somehow and so that’s what we’re trying to figure out how to do that.”

Residents question charges

Carpenter said she questions whether she should have to pay for all of the additional water on her bill. She said the old meter was installed in 2010, nine years before she bought her home.

“So, they were saying that some point between 2010 and 2026, 19,000 extra gallons were used that were not paid for. So that could have just as easily been the owners before me. I don’t know how many people owned my house before me, but they wanted us to pay that,” she said.

Resident Dennis Smith said he reviewed five years of his water usage and questioned how consistently inaccurate readings could have been over time.

“I’ve been using 2,000 and it’s creeped up. My family comes and goes, they live with us and they don’t live with us, and for years now, I’ve been up 3,000 some gallons a year and it’s been so consistent. So, if the meter’s not right, it’s not right. All these years, every month to be so consistently inaccurate, I don’t know,” Smith said.

Smith said has live in his house for 56 years.

“They’re saying my meter hasn’t been accurate. Well, doesn’t the meter seem like it might be inaccurate for just a short period of time or some. You’re saying my meters been inaccurate virtually from the time they put it in. That’s the part I’m not understanding,” Smith added.

Next steps

Mayor Kincannon said council will revisit concerns raised at the meeting during a work session scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Nov. 19. He said he hopes the village can reach a fair resolution for residents while also paying for its water supply.

“I think the most important thing of all is that we come to some fair resolution for all the residents and are able to also pay the bill too, because we buy all of our water from rural Lorain County water. We don’t have our own water plant. We used to years and years ago, but we buy our water. We purchase it and you have to pay for it,” Mayor Kincannon added.

The village says residents who could not attend the special meeting can ask to arrange a meeting about their bills.

Officials also say as long as resident pay an estimated bill from their previous payments that their water won’t be shut off.

A final resolution had not been announced at the time of the interviews.