Hypothetical situation
You’re at your city of Carmi home at 8pm on a random Tuesday when you notice a pipe leaking in your home. To further complicate matters, you don’t have a disconnect somewhere between the meter in your yard and your home. If you go out to the meter and turn it off yourself, you could be charged a $500 fee for tampering. The right move, according to city officials, is to contact the city and have a municipal employee come turn your meter off. That will now cost you at least $100 after Carmi City Council passed a resolution establishing rates for service calls outside of the normal 7am – 3pm work day. Even some council members were unaware of the potential danger or charge.
Mayor Pollard: If you go out and shut the water off yourself, you can be charged a $500 tampering fee. So if you call somebody out to come out and shut your water off at 7 o’clock at night, then that’s what the fee is.
Tracy Nelson: You can’t turn your own water off?
Several individuals: No
Doug Hays: Because those stops are very ta…you know you twist that just barely too far and you tear it up.
Mark Blake: New meters.
Doug Hays: Yep, you are not allowed to touch your own…that’s our meter, you cannot touch it. They are very easily torn up.
Pollard: Do I need to be sending a bill to you?
Nelson: I don’t think I have a new one.
Pollard/Hays: It’s not the new ones. It’s the old ones.
Nelson: I’ve turned my water off a dozen times.
Lacey Bradsaw: Don’t be telling it.
Nelson: Well hell, I didn’t know it was illegal.
For each service call as defined in the ordinance which concerns electrical, water, sewer, or other, the charge is $100 for the first hour and $125 for each additional hour. Calls on city observed holidays will cost you an additional $50. You can read the entire ordinance below:
