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Residents urge water-meter apps and raise elevator safety concerns at Bethlehem council meeting
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Summary
Public commenters urged the city to adopt consumer water-monitoring apps to prevent surprise bills and a councilwoman demanded follow-up and an apology after multiple inspection failures at the New Wallace Street garage elevators.
Members of the public used the meeting’s public comment period to press officials on utilities and safety.
Mark Webber, a resident of West Elizabeth Avenue, urged the city to adopt protective consumer apps (he cited examples such as Aquahawk and WaterSmart) that allow customers to detect leaks quickly. He criticized the city's current monitoring threshold, saying the city only flags usage over 3,000 meters/day and therefore may miss substantial leaks that still produce large quarterly bills. "If you have that protective app, that's not gonna happen to you," Webber said, arguing the technology would prevent surprise charges.
In old business, a councilwoman raised concerns about the New Wallace Street garage elevators, saying there were five inspection failures described in correspondence from the Department of Labor and Industry (L&I) and that union elevator workers had warned the general contractor about issues that were ignored. The councilwoman said those inspection failures included problems with machine-room drawings, improper piping in hoistways, missing required GFCIs, and missing smoke heads on certain floors, and she asked the mayor to apologize to the union workers for being publicly blamed. She also requested that city administration confirm that violations have been rectified.
Public commenters also included Reverend Timothy Smith, who offered a prayer urging unity and service, and Steven Antalix, who criticized council decorum and urged new leadership to be more responsive to public input.
The council did not provide a recorded response to the technical water-app recommendation during the meeting, nor did the transcript include an immediate reply from the mayor to the elevator-inspection request; follow-up from administration is required for both items.
Quote: "When he says that he's monitoring the water, that's a little misleading," Mark Webber said about the city's monitoring threshold; and a councilwoman said, "I think the mayor owns a public apology to the union elevator workers."
