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Councilors debate sanitation billing glitches as residents report erroneous charges
Summary
Councilors discussed sanitation fee billing errors affecting vacant lots and separate irrigation meters, with staff promising corrections and adjustments for affected accounts.
Lebanon City Councilors raised persistent problems with the newly implemented sanitation fee during the Aug. 26 meeting, citing vacant lots and separate irrigation meters that received charges in error. Councilors said some property owners had received bills for empty lots or for secondary meters used only for irrigation, and they pressed staff for corrective steps.
Councilor Burda (transcript spelling varied) outlined operational figures provided by staff: since the ordinance’s March adoption, 26 letters had been issued related to compliance, nine businesses had complied, 13 cases remained open, four notices had not been delivered and five citations had been issued. Councilors and staff discussed how master meters are billed: where a single master meter serves multiple units, the master meter account receives the sanitation charge and is responsible for internally allocating costs to tenants or customers.
Staff said they are correcting billing errors as they are identified and will issue credits where appropriate. City staff also said they will continue to process applications for poverty-level reductions and expect to have more complete records after additional billing cycles. Councilor Ashley said he had identified cases where two meters at a single residence (irrigation and a regular meter) were both billed, and staff said they have corrected those instances where notified.
Councilors asked about enforcement and whether sanitation-only accounts could face service cutoffs. Staff said water cutoffs are triggered under current utility procedures on overdue balances exceeding $25 after required notices; sanitation-only accounts are rare and will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Multiple councilors reiterated the need for continued staff attention to the technical and customer-service aspects of implementation; staff said they would continue to correct issues and provide updated counts of approved reduction applications within the next few billing cycles.
