Citizen Portal
Sign In

Council asks manager to seek answers from utilities after spike in bills; city to review water‑bill complaints

Chesapeake City Council · February 17, 2026

Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts

Subscribe
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Council members asked the city manager to request explanations from Dominion Energy and Virginia Natural Gas for recent bill increases and to investigate unusually large water bills and customer‑service delays; staff said it will follow up and route common inquiries to the contact center.

Several council members pressed city staff to investigate spikes in utility bills and to engage regional utilities for clearer explanations. Vice Mayor Ritter asked the manager to request that Dominion Energy explain what she called “exponential increases” in customer bills and to address related concerns such as transmission, data‑center charges and broader rate components. Council members also urged the city to ask Virginia Natural Gas for similar explanations.

The manager said the city has made such requests in the past when community‑wide billing issues arise and pledged to follow up. Council members also reported unusually large water bills that have required in‑person resolution; staff said the city will begin rolling calls over to the customer contact center to triage frequent questions and connect residents more quickly to a human representative for issues that need deeper investigation.

Council requested that staff report back on potential legislative or administrative steps the city could support to improve collection tools and customer protections, especially for widespread billing anomalies.