MOUNDSVILLE – Staring down the barrel of increased debt service, rising operation costs, and with the prospect of government intervention if they took no action, Moundsville’s city council voted to raise the sanitary rates to the city.

Council voted unanimously to pass the increase at the third and final reading, introducing a 35.4 percent hike. Based on an average residential use of 4,000 gallons of water per month, this is projected to raise the monthly rate from $19.08 to $25.83. City Manager Rick Healy stated that this increase brings Moundsville up from the second-lowest rate in the state to the ninth-lowest among municipalities. The last increase was enacted in 2010.

The rate increase was made necessary from a variety of factors, Healy stated, including an emergency manhole replacement project from the previous year, which cost the city more than $450,000, or 10 percent of the 35.4 percent increase. Additionally, the state requires that a capital improvement fund be created and funded when rates are increased, which clocked in at 16 percent of the increase. On top of that, rising operational expenses for the sanitary board — composed of everything from materials, electricity, and staff wages — made up 8.6 percent of the hike. The final 0.8 percent, representing $40,000, will go to replace a 1998 pickup truck.

Despite the unanimous vote, council members voiced their distaste for the raising of rates, which had previously been described as a “necessary evil.” Council member Randy Chamberlain, who was elected last year and sworn in on Dec. 19,, said the city had no other choice than to take this action.

“There was a serious need. It isn’t something that we’d elect to do at this time, but we really don’t have an option here. It’s with reluctance that all of us find ourselves in this position, but it is what is necessary at this time,” Chamberlain said.

Denny Wallace, the other newly elected council member, echoed those sentiments.

“We were well informed and kept updated through this process, and we well know that this is not wanted, but it’s needed,” Wallace added.

In previous council meetings, accountants from the sanitary board said that failing to enact the rate increase would result in the public service commission stepping in to set the city’s rates independently, and likely at a substantially higher cost. At a November meeting, council member Judy Hunt described a situation where the city of Cameron also faced a 35-percent rate hike, but declined to go through with it after public outcry.

“We had a protest from the citizens,” Hunt had said, “and the public service commission came in, audited the books, and once we went through all the public hearings, they came back at a rate increase of 86 percent. That’s a big concern.”

This was Wallace and Chamberlain’s first council meeting in their new terms; both men had previously served on council in decades past.

They took the at-large council seats from Phil Remke and Brianna Hickman, who was appointed to council, filling the unexpired term of David Haynes at the start of last year.

Remke, a familiar face around town, was appointed to the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission, along with resident David Seum. According to information on the city’s website, the two men will replace Carole Wood and Jim Cochran, who did not seek reappointment; Karen Baker, Victoria Glover-South, and Cassie Clark did, and were reappointed. Hickman, too, was appointed to the Moundsville Building Commission.