CHAMOIS — Chamois aldermen at a special meeting last Wednesday approved the appointment of Rob Skaggs to fill the seat vacated by Alderman Debbie Huff. His appointment by Mayor Elise Brochu was unanimously accepted. Skaggs had served as an alderman in years past.

“Welcome back,” Alderman Marty Gerloff said after the swearing-in ceremony.

“I’m only here temporarily,” Skaggs warned. Skaggs noted that he had only agreed to fill in for the rest of Huff’s term.

Before he was sworn in, the board officially accepted Huff’s resignation and swore in City Clerk Michelle Stanley.

In other business, aldermen again discussed options for dealing with water issues.

“We’ve talked this water thing to death,” Brochu said. “Now somebody has turned their water back on. We have not prosecuted anyone before so if we want to do that, I need a vote that we are going to start doing it now.”

Brochu has already talked to the Osage County Sheriff’s Office and the city’s attorney, Amanda Grellner. The customer can be charged with either theft of city water or tampering with city utilities.

This is the first time since the city has started cracking down on the water issues that anyone has turned their water back on after being shut off by the city.

“If we do it now henceforth, we do it for everyone,” Brochu said. “Fair is fair.”

“We have to do everything by the book,” Skaggs agreed.

Aldermen approved prosecuting the individual and prosecuting any future residents who tamper with the water shut-offs.

* The board has also had an issue come up with a rental house that is split into two residences but only has one water meter.

The water account is in only one of the renter’s name and since the other renter has moved out, he doesn’t want to be responsible for the entire bill.

“The landlord called me and said not to turn the water back on until they pay the water bill,” Stanley explained.

“How can we make them pay someone else’s bill?” Brochu asked. “We have this problem every single time someone moves into that property; every single time.”

“We need to make the landlord responsible for the water and not turn any of them on until they pay,” Gerloff said. “That’s my opinion. Then we solve the problem.”

“But we decided not to do that,” Brochu said. “We can’t do it to one landlord and not do it to all of them.”

“I don’t know why there should be two renters in a dwelling with one water meter,” Skaggs said.

“Is she (the landowner) willing to put two meters in?” Gerloff asked.

“She has been asked to do it several times, but she has to replumb the whole house and it’s way too costly,” Stanley said.

“What we have done before is whoever puts it in their name is responsible for the bill and they can fight it out amongst themselves but every time we keep talking about it,” Brochu said.

“If we don’t fix this, people are just going to keep moving into these places and doing the same thing,” Gerloff said.

“Do we even want to do payment plans for renters?” Brochu asked. “Do we want to allow the bill to ever get more than the deposit?”

“That’s what the deposit is for,” Skaggs said.

Brochu is going to ask Grellner if it is legal to accept payment plans for property owners and not for renters. The mayor also noted the existing payment plans would be grandfathered in but no new payment plans would be set up if the board decided to make those changes to the water ordinance. Brochu also mentioned eliminating payment plans for all new accounts.

“We’ve talked about this a million times, and I know the easiest way to solve it,” Gerloff said.

“Go back to making the landlords responsible for the water bills,” Brochu said.

“Yes,” Gerloff said. “‘Cause the same people are going to keep doing the same thing.”

“I have looked it up and there are several cities pretty close to us where the landlords are responsible for all of it,” Stanley said.

“That’s the way it’s all going ‘cause of all of this crap,” Gerloff said. “But it will just be a big firestorm again.”

“It will be, “ Brochu said. “But if it is, it is.”

Brochu acknowledged that this was not an issue that the board needed to make a decision on that night, but wanted aldermen to consider changes that they want to make to the ordinance.

Aldermen will discuss changes to the water ordinance at the next meeting, which is slated for Thursday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m.