Residents Question Officials Over Proposed Water Bill Increase

Residents questioned Manassas Park officials Tuesday night about a proposed water and sewer bill increase that would mean the average monthly residential bill could go up . 

Residents attended a civil and low-key town hall meeting at the Manassas Park Community Center called by City Council. The proposed hike, which means that the residential base rate will jump from $26 to $52 every month, is being driven by a number of factors, said city public works director James "Jay" Johnson. 

"Much of our aging system needs significant repairs," said Johnson. "Our older lines allow rainwater to leak into the sewer pipes."

in fees to support itself for a number of years, said city manager James "Jim" Zumwalt. However, in years past, it was supported by robust new construction and development which paid the city millions of dollars in one-time tap or connection fees. That money has since dried up, Zumwalt said. 

“We have focused on problems here that we can’t ignore,” Zumwalt said. 

Resident Ed Rishell noted that while residential users will see their bills at least double, from $26 a month to $52 a month, commercial users will only see an average increase of 32 percent. 

However, Johnson noted that the comparison could be a little misleading. In the end, the commercial user will wind up paying more on a monthly basis. For example, under the proposal, a residential user would be charged about $117 for 6,000 gallons of water a month while a commercial user would pay $136 for the same amount of water. 

The city system serves about 5,000 commercial and residential users, combined, and distributes about 1.3 million gallons of water a day, Johnson said.   

Another resident, who only identified himself as James, said he represented a 40-unit condo complex where they’ve been told that their monthly bill would increase by about $500 a month. 

"We don’t have the money in the budget to pay for that sort of increase," James said. 

Manassas Park Mayor Frank Jones promised that city officials would work with the condo complex to see if they could confirm the amount of the increase and work out ways that the bill might possibly be cut. 

Manassas Park resident and former Mayor Frank Murphy was concerned about how the less affluent residents would be able to pay an increase that amounted to $1 per day. 

"I know you’ve been talking about it as an increase of $1 per day," Murphy said, "But there are a lot of people out there who are still going to take a big hit with the increase."

The council has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed increase for May 8 with a potential council vote set for May 15.