City's new water meters lead to some confusion

A 71-year resident of Franklin and former city councilman, Skip Hebert, voiced his concern about the city’s plastic water meter covers floating away from their seats subsequent to heavy rainfall.
Hebert addressed the mayor and council at their regular meeting Tuesday.
Hebert’s concern lay in the question of the meter covers being attached to the meters by wires, which in some cases detach from the meter, and in so doing, may leave the meter’s account holder responsible for charges inconsistent to actual water usage.
Ed Hay, city director of finance, explained in reference to the meters, “Here’s how it works. The wires are hardwired into the device…even if someone were to tamper with the wires the meter itself records the readings. It’s internal, within the mechanism. It keeps the readings. We can always retrieve the readings even if something (like that) happens.”
Hay said the floating of the plastic lids off the meters is because current housings for the city’s water meters are cement boxes topped with plastic lids. Hay attributed the floating lids to their not fitting the concrete boxes correctly.
“What we are doing over a period of time, is replacing the cement boxes with plastic boxes that the tops fit to, and hold in place, so that we won’t have that problem,” he said. “Another thing we are working on right now is a system, a portal that every customer will be able to come to at City Hall, and sign up and get a password that will allow them to see their system, their water, and they’ll be able to regulate, and look and see what’s going on.”
In other business, the council heard from Jeff Billiot from Volunteers of America, an organization dedicated to housing homeless veterans. Though the Volunteers of America is based out of New Orleans, Billiot said they have an office in Houma, and that the region of coverage for that office includes Franklin. “We can’t be everywhere,” said Billiot, “So we’d like to extend our services through your assessments. If you see a homeless veteran, direct them to us.”
Also in attendance was Suzanne deMahy, with an announcement of her election as judge of the 16th Judicial Court, Division B. She was unopposed.
deMahy is set to be sworn in sometime in December. She will be replacing Judge Paul deMahy, who is set to retire by Dec. 31.
Also Tuesday:
—Carla Weindenborner announced her candidacy for Third Ward and Franklin City Marshal, to be decided by special election in October.
—Ordinance 3363 was adopted declaring certain movable property no longer needed for public purposes as surplus movable property; due to said movable property constituting a burden of unnecessary expense and consuming needed space and offering said property for sale that could be utilized by others; authorizing the Mayor and Council of the City of Franklin to auction said surplus movable property through the sealed bid process to the bidder submitting the highest sealed bid.
—A resolution authorizing Mayor Raymond Harris Jr. to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Office of Children and Family Services of the State of Louisiana was approved.
—Keep St. Mary Beautiful City-Wide Cleanup will take place August 12, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at the Stage parking lot.
—The City Dance Recital and Student Art Show will be held Saturday at the Teche Theatre. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the recital begins at 6 p.m. Tickets are on sale for $5 and can be purchased at the following locations: Broussard-Harris Recreation Center, T-shirts and Treasures, The French Door, The Lamp Lighter and Meyer’s Shoe Store.