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<br /> <br /> Mr. Perry: And they have ductile line now? <br /> <br /> Ms. Beck: They’re PVC. <br /> <br /> Mr. Perry: PVC now? <br /> <br /> Ms. Beck: Yeah. We put PVC in, but back then they didn’t have that kind of <br />material. <br /> <br /> Ms. Leithead-Todd: You can even see one pipe that they made out of red brick. <br />It’s not in use now, but you know they created materials based on whatever they had <br />available, but it, Hilo was, it didn’t go to a sewage treatment plant back then, but the <br />pipes went out to the ocean. But as you build a sewage treatment plant you use the <br />same pipe system that was there, you just redirected the ultimate flow from the ocean to <br />a wastewater treatment facility. <br /> <br /> Mr. Espejo: Getting back to the collections part, it’s not going to get any better I <br />don’t think because you don’t have that hammer especially for the residential side. <br /> <br /> Ms. Leithead-Todd: Well, next December we will. Next December I get to shut <br />off water if people don’t pay their bills. <br /> <br /> Mr. Espejo: And then they’ll go to a payment plan if they can’t? They’ll have to <br />put a minimum or something like that? <br /> <br /> Ms. Leithead-Todd: You know the experience in Detroit which is not necessarily <br />a good example; however, they had 17,000 customers that were not paying their water <br />bills. They shut the water off. Unfortunately, they shut it off with no notice to anybody. <br />Fifty percent of the customers came in within 24 hours and paid their bills. So obviously <br />when it became important enough to people, they came in and paid the bill. Now we’re <br />not proposing to do that, we’re proposing to get notice out to people, give them the <br />option of a payment plan that they can’t pay all of the arrears at one time, but we <br />needed that option and we finally got that passed through the County Council, but it is <br />effective next December. <br /> <br /> Mr. Medeiros: That’s a whole year though. <br /> <br /> Ms. Leithead-Todd: Better than never. <br /> <br /> Mr. Espejo: But that’s the right way to do it you have to have, let people know. <br /> <br /> Ms. Leithead-Todd: Yeah. So we’re going to do an education program, we’re <br />going to be putting information out in the bills that effective next December and that if <br />they’re in arrears that you probably better off to come in and do some kind of plan with <br />us now. And by the way our rates are extremely low. They don’t cover our cost, that’s <br />why we have to look at the rate increase. <br /> <br /> Mr. Espejo: You’re building a buffer zone then in your rate increase. <br /> <br />6 <br /> <br /> <br />