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Oakley and Cemetery District to review records and consider flat-fee water deal after summer billing spikes
Summary
After reviewing three years of cemetery meter reads and a year-to-date bill total of roughly $5,079, Oakley council and the South Summit Cemetery District agreed to research historical minutes and billing, explore a flat-fee arrangement (the District asserts a prior $250/month deal), and reconvene for a formal proposal.
Mayor (unnamed) presented three years of water billing and meter data for three cemetery sites (Stevens Cemetery, Oakley Cemetery and the New South Summit/North Bench Cemetery) and said the Cemetery District had not paid overage charges this year; the city’s compiled billing totals for 2025 were approximately $5,079 to date.
Jack, who represents the Cemetery District, said the District understood there was an earlier agreement to pay $250 per month for cemetery water—an arrangement he tied to a corner sign that was installed when the land changed hands. The mayor and other council members disputed that memory, saying the sign was part of a land deal and not a water agreement; council asked staff to search minutes and records to verify what was agreed in earlier years.
Council discussed the high summer bills, noting month-to-month spikes (examples: one month showed about $1,150) that may be caused by missed meter reads or registering issues; staff explained when a meter read is missed a subsequent read can cause a large single-month charge. The parties discussed excluding the New South Summit (North Bench) site — the highest-use outlier — when calculating a flat monthly fee for the remaining cemeteries.
Jack said he would take a proposal back to the Cemetery District board; city staff agreed to assemble the billing history and minutes to share at the council’s meeting on the tenth so the District could consider it at its meeting on the 15th. Council emphasized any long-term arrangement should be memorialized in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to avoid future disputes.
