Athens City Council discusses false fire alarms caused by Ohio U, city water shut-off fees

Athens City Council met in committees Monday night to discuss a broad agenda. A number of issues were discussed, one regarding the number of fire alarms attributed to Ohio University. 

It seems that every semester, the streets of Athens are filled with flashing lights and sirens. Although an inconvenience to passersby and residents, these emergency service calls cost the city money. 

In most situations, a false alarm fee would have to be paid by landlords, residents, or property owners; however, Ohio U does not have to pay the false alarm fee, according to Service Safety Director Andrew Stone. 

“[Ohio University is] a state agency and the state agency would say that they don’t necessarily have to follow city ordinances as far as this particular rule,” Stone said.

Councilmember Alan Swank questioned Stone about why this was allowed and what is stopping others from refusing to pay their false alarm fees as well.

“I don’t have any experience right now where someone blatantly refuses to pay, other than the university,” Stone responded.

In the Committee of the Whole meeting, a number of fees, including fees charged for city water shut-off, were discussed.  As explained by Stone, “If a homeowner had a flood and needed their water to be turned off on a Friday afternoon and they did not wish to wait until Monday to have it turned on again, they would have to pay a fee for the off-hours service.” 

There is already a fee in place for when a city employee has to shut off city water to a residence that does not have an internal shut-off valve; however, the same fee would be charged for when the water must be turned back on outside of business hours. A 3% increase in sewer fees was also recommended by the Committee of the Whole, alongside several changes to code language surrounding various other fees.

“This assigns a fee for not waiting until Monday morning basically to pull somebody in on overtime,” Stone said. “Now this is not going to cover costs, but it does at least recover some costs associated with that request of a water customer to have a turn on in an off-hours capacity.”

City Council will hold its next regular session meeting on Sept. 19th.