Re: No-work employees, bill questions lowlight water meter battle (published Feb. 17)

These meters were installed during the Monica administration (2000 – 2008) and had a maintenance agreement attached to the contract. For some reason someone terminated the maintenance agreement.

Who was his second CAO? Now this Administration is saying that the battery in these meters had a 10-year life span. Why terminate the maintenance agreement? What did it cover?

To read these meters a laptop computer was installed in two pickup trucks and you would see these trucks going house to house down a street. Not anymore.

November of 2015, a billing department employee suddenly quit. My February 2016 bill was way out of line. I did question a Parish official and was told, “You must have used the water because it went through the meter.” Then in July, I see a pile of dirt around my meter box. Yes they did change my meter. The next month, I get a bill for $75.17.

Now this Administration wants to spend millions of dollars to replace all of the meters. Why? As you stated in your column, a company is being paid $65,950 to tell them they have a problem.

They also hired more meter readers but she didn’t know if it was 6 or 8. Now all I see are trucks with “Meter Services” on the door riding around. I can’t tell you the last time I saw someone reading a meter in my neighborhood. Must be while I’m sleeping.

Does anyone know the difference between averaging and estimating? When you get a bill that has a 30-day billing period and the consumption is for 48 days, is that averaging or estimating? Remember your sewerage fee is based on consumption. But again sewer consumption days do not match usage days.

My question is, when did she realize she had a problem? 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. This will not go away any time soon.

How many months will this Council just sit back and let the people suffer. You have awhile. The next election is not until November 2019.

— Richard Marino,

LaPlace