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Powhatan Today, June 11, 2014
Changes proposed for some county fees By Laura McFarland News Editor
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mall changes in Powhatan County billing practices will be up for discussion at the Monday, June 16, meeting of the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors. Powhatan County staff members introduced several “housekeeping items” at a June 2 meeting pertaining to local fees or billing issues. Two proposed amendments to current county ordinances would bring changes to current rates while the third would update an ordinance on emergency services billing so it matches current procedures. The public can weigh in on the proposed changes at the meeting at 7 p.m. on June 16 in the Village Building auditorium at 3910 Old Buckingham Road. During the June 2 meeting, Johnny Melis, the county’s utilities manager, introduced an ordinance change for an 8 percent increase in the commodity water rate for county customers. A commodity charge is the portion of a customer’s bill that is based on actual water usage. Powhatan County buys its water from Chesterfield County, which recently passed its own 8 percent commodity charge increase, he said. Powhatan’s estimated cost increase will be $17,300. The proposed change would raise Powhatan’s rate from $3.44 per 1,000 gallons of water to $4.56, bringing in an estimated $17,400 revenue from customers to bridge the gap. “We fall in between Henrico and Aqua Virginia, who is also a service
PHOTOS BY LAURA MCFARLAND
Above left, Johnny Melis, Powhatan County’s utilities manager, discusses an ordinance change for an 8 percent increase in the commodity water rate for county customers. Charla Schubert, right, the county’s new director of finance and administration, introduces a change proposed to the county’s false alarm fees for burglary and robbery alarm systems.
provider here in the county,” Melis said. Most of the customers affected by the change are commercial or schools, he said. The county has 78 accounts, with a breakdown of 69 business accounts, five meters serving two schools, three residential accounts and one account serving a county building. Residential customers account for less than 1 percent of the total water usage on county accounts, he said. Charla Schubert, the county’s new director of finance and administration, addressed a change proposed to the county’s false alarm fees for burglary and robbery alarm systems.
The ordinance addressing the fees for false alarms going off within a 180-day period was one of the first Schubert reviewed after she was hired in May, she said. “I determined that the fee schedule that was in place made it very difficult to bill properly.” She said she researched false alarm ordinances in surrounding localities for comparison and discussed the fee structure with Pat Weiler, county administrator, and Sheriff Gregory Neal. Under the current ordinance, the false alarm fees start at $25 for the first false alarm and gradually increase until a jump from $85 for the fifth call to $500
for six or more calls, she said. The proposed change would have no fee for the first two false alarms, charge $100 for the third to fifth, and keep $500 for six or more, she said. “It makes the fees easier for businesses and individuals to understand. It is a simpler structure and that is where we want to go with that,” she said. Schubert also introduced amendments to an ordinance related to the fees, billing and collections for emergency services. On March 19, 2012, the Board of Supervisors adopted the emergency medical transport fees ordinance for billing in the county to have a compassionate billing process for county residents, she said. “In that action, the ability to bill uninsured county residents was completely removed,” Schubert said. She proposed amending the ordinance for the current code to add uninsured county residents back — giving the county the ability to bill them — and add a compassionate billing policy allowing the county administrator discretion to write off fees for financial need. Weiler said staff reviewed notes in the county attorney’s office when the ordinance was approved in 2012 and felt it was the board of supervisors’ intent in 2012 to have a compassionate billing process. “But we do need to bill the uninsured county residents so that we do get insurance information from them or we do confirm that they don’t have insurance information,” she said. David Williams, who represents District 1, agreed that was the original intent of the ordinance.
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planned to go in 2013. At the time, he was undergoing chemotherapy for his first fight with mantle cell lymphoma and had a treatment that day. “It fatigues you. I was going to lay down for a quick nap and 12 hours later is when I got up.” Polly Mullins, chair of the local Relay For Life program, encouraged him to try again this year and he did, attending with Anita, his wife of 39 years. Until cancer struck him, Palmore admits that Relay was something he heard about but hadn’t attended. “Now that it has gotten this close to your family, you go up and meet other people. You try not to trade war stories but just support one another,” he said. Relay For Life events offer people a chance to show how much they care about people who are fighting the disease and
want to be part of making sure a cure is found, Ruth Boatwright, team captain for the Friends and Family for a Cure team, said. Boatwright is a breast cancer survivor, and, like Palmore, she tries not to think about it too much. “I know what V.G. has gone through and is still going through, but I still see the person he is and what he has meant to this community.” Palmore was born and raised in Powhatan and apprenticed with his late father, Vivian Palmore, to become a carpenter. After he received his first cancer diagnosis in August 2012 and started treatment, he decided to keep working. Even when he wasn’t operating at 100 percent, he said he stayed busy. “If you just sit there idle, your mind dwells on what’s wrong and if you are going to get better and you get depressed,” he said. It has helped that his family has stayed positive and treated him nor-
mally. “They just feel everything is going to be alright.” After surgery and chemotherapy, doctors told Palmore in January 2013 that he was in remission. Then that August, his neck started swelling — the cancer was back. He started chemotherapy and radiation a few weeks later and the cancer has been shrinking, he said. Being diagnosed with cancer has been eyeopening, Palmore said. It wasn’t only the personal effect it has had on him — he remembered wearing his hat a great deal more after losing his hair. He said he was amazed when he went in for treatments to see the wide range of people of all ages there for treatment, too. Seeing others going through the same battle gave him strength to keep his spirits up. “You can’t get depressed or feel down because that makes it worse.”
PHOTOS BY LAURA MCFARLAND
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