City Council approved a company’s offer to perform an energy audit on City Hall’s existing utility bills which will determine whether the city has been overbilled for services in the past.

The audit “will take a look at utilities we’ve been paying and see whether we’ve been overcharged,” said Interim City Manager Ted Reed. “If we have been overcharged, we will find out what the charges should have been and what reduction in rates the city will get.”

UtiliTech, Inc.'s audit, which will take about six to eight weeks, will be free of cost to the city. To perform the audit, the company will collect one year of electric bills and three months of gas and water bills from the city, according to Rowan.

Do you think the energy audit is a good idea?

City Council Vice President Karl Marking learned that there were more than 40 vacant seats on the city’s various authorities, boards, commissions and committees.

Marking said he spent about 120 hours reviewing meeting minutes back to 2004 with the help of Ruthann Mowday, an administrative assistant for the city. Ultimately, Marking said the vacancies were a result of bad record keeping.

The goal now is to get dedicated residents involved in these authorities, boards, commissions and committees.

“There is a huge apathy problem in the city and part of that is because people feel the elected officials aren’t fulfilling their duties,” Marking said. “It’s easy to turn people away from positions in government when they feel the government is broken.”

What do you think about the vacancies?

To view City Council's memo, the requirements to serve on the board and the application, visit the below links.

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/DLN/MemoaboutCvillevacancies.pdf

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/DLN/RequirementstoserveCvilleboardcommission.pdf

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/DLN/ApplicationtoserveonCvilleboardcommission.pdf