Perry votes 3-1 to take a 15% water, sewer increase to hearing

Perry water and sewer customers are facing a 15% increase, and the city council picked that number on Sept. 3 before anyone had spoken at a hearing. The council voted 3-1 to advertise a public hearing on "a possible 15% increase in water/sewer rates" for Oct. 1 at 7:15 p.m. Mindy Galbavi, Kristin Babel and Jerry Polmounter voted yes. Kamal Ghazi voted no. Mayor Pro-Tem Mike Connell and council member Bob Porter were absent, both excused.

The minutes say the council locked in the figure that night for a practical reason: "because of posting requirements for the public hearing in the newspaper." A notice has to carry a number, so the number had to be chosen before the discussion with residents, not after it.

What the minutes do not contain is a dollar figure. Nowhere in the record is there a current bill, a new bill, or what 15% costs a typical household in a year. City Clerk Shirley Smith provided council with the city's current rates and rate comparisons from other municipalities at Ghazi's request, but those numbers are not reproduced in the minutes.

The debate itself is recorded in plain terms. Galbavi "feels the rate should be increased and if we don't raise the rate enough we will not meet our goal," the minutes say, adding her statement that "Right now, we do not have the water capacity to expand." She put her own floor at 12% and her preference at 15%, and said the city "paid the experts OHM to provide us with this information." The Current reported in August that the council signed an engineer-of-record agreement with OHM at its July 2 meeting. Mayor Sue Hammond said OHM's engineers "have spent two years to present this recommendation for the 15% increase." DPW Superintendent John Souder said the money is not only for capacity but "is also for replace old water mains and upgrades." Babel said the city does "not want to end up like a neighboring city." Polmounter said he was "all for the 15% increase."

Ghazi was the one dissent on the record, saying 15% "is too high and some residents may not be able to afford the increase with all of the other increases at the grocery store, gas, etc." The council had already pushed this decision once: The Current reported that rate decisions were moved from the Aug. 6 meeting to Sept. 3. The Oct. 1 hearing has now come and gone; the city has not yet posted minutes for that meeting, so the outcome is not on the record.

The same night, a prospective business owner asked the council to look at how Perry measures water demand. Mark Apsey handed out information on a laundromat he would like to open in Perry and asked that the city's REU schedule — residential equivalent units, the yardstick a utility uses to translate a business's water use into household-sized units for billing and capacity — "be reviewed and updated if necessary." The minutes note he asked for no waiver and no immediate decision. An REU ordinance discussion is on the list of agenda items for the next meeting.

On the elevator at City Hall, the council moved to take a quote from Otis Elevator running Jan. 1, 2027 through Dec. 31, 2031, at $2,520 for the first year with annual increases of 5% to 7%, replacing the city's current contract with Schindler Elevator. Smith told the council the switch saves $1,287.11 in the first year and that even in year five the city would pay less annually than it paid in 2025. The minutes record the motion and the second but do not record a vote or a result — the only action item that night without one. A separate quote for replacing the City Hall doors was tabled to Oct. 1.

Two other items from the Sept. 3 reports affect people directly. Souder said Consumers Energy — not the city — is replacing gas service lines in the older section of town, roughly 140 of them, and asked residents to stop pulling up and throwing marking flags into the road, because crews have had to come back and re-mark. And Planning Commission member Genevieve Cottrell resigned by email, leaving two open seats on that body, Hammond said; there is also an open seat on the council's Ordinance Committee.

What happens next: Smith reminded residents that council seats and the mayor's seat are open, and that write-in Candidate Declaration of Intent forms are due in her office by 4 p.m. Oct. 23. The council's own list of items for the Oct. 1 meeting included accepting the planning commission resignation, the City Hall door quotes, dissolving the Pension Committee and the REU discussion. Treasurer Meggen Galbreath reported two businesses are organizing a Halloween "Treats on Main Street" alongside the fire department's fall safety event on Sunday, Oct. 25, from 2 to 5 p.m. The Current has asked for the Oct. 1 minutes and the city's current and proposed rate sheets.