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City Council anticipates water vote next week

Council could vote as soon as next week on whether or not the mayor should move forward with the agreement.

TOLEDO, Ohio — A vote on whether or not Toledo wants to join the regional water agreement can happen as early as next week. One group wants council members to slow down before jumping into the agreement.

The mayor and some members of Toledo city council are saying this vote needs to happen as soon as possible so the other nine municipalities can sign on to the agreement, and because they want to roll out uniformed monthly billing by January of 2020.

"We've held community meetings throughout the community, we've had one in every single district, we've really taken the time to consider what was said to us by citizens and make sure this contract reflects the wants and desires of our community," Councilman Nick Komives said.

For Komives, who leads the committee dealing with regional water, he says now is the time to act since it has been almost a year of drafting the Regional Water Agreement.

"There will be further discussion, this is not the end of the discussion. This is just the first part of the process, where we're going to ask for permission for the mayor to enter into the contract," Director of Public Utilities Ed Moore said.

Moore says this is a time where Toledo needs to act first, since it is taking ownership of the agreement.

"The other municipalities have said they would like to see us take the leadership position and pass it through our council and then they would reciprocate and do the same thing on their end," Moore said.

However, there are those that are expressing their concerns, including the Protect Our Water Coalition.

"We're finding that a lot of people aren't informed and they're not getting the information they want. There's a lot of misunderstandings because people are confusing this proposal with the Toledo Area Water Authority proposal," Sean Nestor with the Protect our Water Coalition said.

The coalition wants to make sure low income and senior households still get discounted rates. This is something Moore announced would be happening. 

They also want to see what the rates would be for water, but Moore says that can't happen yet since it depends on how many municipalities sign up for the agreement.

"The more people we have paying into the system, the lower the cost will be for people paying into it," Komives said.

Among council members, many are ready to vote. But a few, like councilman Peter Ujvaji say they are willing to wait. 

Komives believes the vote will happen on September 3.

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