City Superintendent Gary Koos said there is a separate water meter for the trailer park he found a while back, but hasn’t been read. However, the meter he said is eight feet underground and cannot be easily read.

Dinsmore asked Koos whether the meter could be moved at the park to an easier place to read. He suggested the same should be done at other homes where the meter is in a difficult place to read as well.
Councilman Jim Johnson said in the meantime, the meter at the trailer park should be read to find out if money is owed on that meter as well.
Chad LeGare also addressed the council about a backdue water bill. He contended there are two meters at his residence, one outside and one inside. He said when he first purchased the house he was told by the previous owner to read the outside meter. However, he said the meter never moved, was cloudy and hard to read.
Councilman Jamie Logan said a long time ago the outside meters were installed on some homes, in addition to the meter inside the home. However, he said some of the outside meters malfunctioned and didn’t work.
LeGare contended the amount on his bill was a reflection of an incorrect reading from the meter.
The council suggested going back to the earliest read water reading and use that amount for a basis for the backdue bill.
The final question came from Barb Richmond who asked where the city was getting the base number to compare to the reading on the water meter. 
“If this is $300 over 11 years, I need to have proof of that,” she said.
While she admitted to not regularly reading her meter, since learning of the amount due on the bill, she has been reading the meter. She said she has used just 3,000 gallons a month for the past two months.
However, Councilman Tom Goracke said water usage tends to change from summer to winter, “so I don’t know if you can use that for a basis,” for an argument.
Johnson suggested looking back at city files and finding the last meter reading to use as a base number for the meter.
Also brought up was the question why even after reading the meter, on Richmond’s water bill the bill accounted for 5,000 gallons of water use. Though the council said having a minimum 5,000 accounted for on their bill even though they do not use that much water is actually in Richmond’s favor, the council agreed to look into the matter as to why her bill shows usage of 5,000 gallons even though the amount was reported less.
The council decided to table all of the questions on backdue water bills to figure out a fair course of action for accurately collecting the bill.

Next week
More from Monday’s Starbuck City Council meeting can be found in next week’s issue of the Times.