Let’s talk water billing. The water bills for the City of Bristow are always due on the 15th. Anything after that is late. Currently, we charge a $30 fee at 10am on the “cutoff date” 10 days later. This month the water department prepared 374 cutoff notices. Public Works had those to deliver. The fact that these two departments had these tasks increased their workload. This results in overtime for Public Works every single month. It also increase fuel and vehicle use, every single month. It goes without saying that if Public Works employees - and this week it took 5 of them, while three were out for training and one was on vacation - are doing this, they aren’t readily available for brush pick up, water line repair, sewer repair, street repair, mowing, weedeating, curb painting, vehicle maintenance and multitude of other jobs that most residents don’t even know they’re doing until they see that they aren’t done.
I’m a new mayor facing old challenges. Trust me when I say I am focused daily on making this work for all concerned. Some of you might not be happy with the solutions we apply. I welcome your input.