Online Contests!
Check back to enter

Obituaries: Lela Spruill, Carol Gibson, Carole Register, Alice Evans, Manetta Brown, Minnie Ruth Gurley, Bobby Harrell, Margie Marie Howell, Joseph Melton, Wade Sasser Jr.

This week's headlines:

Mount Olive seeking ways to pay $420,000 to convert meter reading

Mount Olive, Faison plan holiday parades for Saturday

Duplin County, Calypso want to see Kornegay honored again

Police looking into bomb threat at MOMS

New Fire Department on the shelf

Waffle House plans MO location

Brown says golf cart complaints are down

Town is making progress on dilapidated buildings

Inside this week

III Century Singers perform holiday concert

Albertson community hits the stewpots for annual fundraiser

MOC students organize to help children

Wayne Community College holiday music concert Dec. 11

Snow Hill OFWB celebrates 100th anniversary with Heritage Day fun

Swinsons celebrate 50th year together

Kornegay, Overton to wed Jan. 10

Bentonville hosting Civil War-era Christmas on Dec. 6

Local Showtimes

Mt. Olive seeking ways to pay $420,000 for meter reading conversion

By William Holloman, staff writer
4 December 2008 – Switching the Town of Mount Olive’s slightly more than 3,500 water meters over for electronic reading instead of the individual manual method will be expensive.
But the project would mean a big savings over the long haul, according to town manager Charles Brown.
The intent to make the change has been going on for several years, because the majority of them are old and out of date and precise use readings are difficult.
The radio read meters, Brown said, are much more efficient.
The plan for the meter change has joined a lot of other plans in getting shuffled to the side when money gets tight.
Brown said a proposal with the company that handles the town’s water meters is currently in hand that would result in working out an agreement to replace current meters.
Brown said the project will cost around $420,000.
He said if a 10-year payoff agreement can be reached, the switch to electronic meters would save the town at least an additional five percent with more efficient readouts.
Brown said the five percent savings would mean about $60,000 a year in additional revenue ad that amount “in essence” would more than pay for the switch.
“It is not an issue of it being a revenue producer, it is just that the electronic readouts are much more accurate for both citizens and the town when the meters are read,” Brown explained.
The changeover, said Brown, means one individual with a laptop computer can ride around town on the new battery-operated vehicle, approach one block and instantly read every single meter on both sides of the street of that block.
“That is much more efficient and certainly far less time consuming and will allow the water department staff to devote more time to other more critical issues,” the town manager said.
The time frame to get started will first focus on discussions with funding agencies.
Brown said if “we can make it work,” then he would like to see something get started right after the first of the year.
The project change would take from three to six months to complete.
Brown said one of the attractions right now is if the town buys the meters in bulk, they can get them at a savings of approximately $25 per meter.
That would be an up-front savings of around $75,000.
Brown said it would also mean that the meter company would assist in installation of the new meters, another big savings.
“Right now,” said Brown, “we are simply looking at the feasibility of how to fund it. It would be a tremendous asset to the town and water customers by dramatically increasing the accuracy of meter readings.”

Issue Archives
Keyword search for previous issue stories here... 
  
06 November 2008 
13 November 2008  
20 November 2008  
27 November 2008  

back to top

SPORTS

Spring Creek Sports

MOC basketball

Looking for current entertainment and events? Pick up a copy of the Mount Olive Tribune Today!