The Sandoval Village Board voted Monday night to replace all the water meters in the community and allow the police department which will soon have four fulltime members to enter into a five year lease program for body cams.
Village Administrator LeeAnn Speiser says the electronic meters will be purchased from Irby Water Resolution at a cost of $283,000. Installation will cost at least $23,000 and associated computer equipment $16,500.
“We hope that it will benefit the whole community because a lot of our meters have reached their useful life and then some. Some of the meters have 4-million gallons on them so they aren’t reading accurately so it’s a loss of revenue for the city and the residents.”
Speiser says there are a number of operating efficiencies as well.
“We will automatically send the meter readings to the software here at the village so there will be no reason for staff to go out and read the meters which is very time consuming especially during the winter months or if there has been a lot of rain, then they have trouble getting accurate readings.”
The board hopes by ordering the meetings Tuesday night the installation can be completed before winter.
The village will use the remainder of their ARPA Covid relief money totaling $118,710 to pay for part of the upgrade. The rest of the money will come from the village’s original TIF fund that is due to expire in 2026.
The board approved Police Chief Joe Lyon’s request to order Axom body cams for the soon to be four fulltime staff of police officers now instead of waiting until January 2025 when they will be mandated by the state. The village will lease the body cams for $10,000 a year for five years. Any damaged cameras will be replaced and new body cams could be provided halfway through the lease period. Board members noted the police involved shooting in Centralia on Tuesday for wanting to get the body cams in place as soon as possible.
The board hired Kaitlyn Young to work in the public works department.
The board also approved a tiny house being located at 105 Isle Street provided it complies with all village ordinances. The owners of the property sought to move in the tiny house due to fire damage to residence at that location.
