Ark Valley News - Long-suffering meter replacement ends

Long-suffering meter replacement ends
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: October 12, 2017

An underground public works project 14 years in the making should have gone unnoticed.

But not this one.

Valley Center City Council member Lou Cicirello nearly broke into applause when the council learned last week that public works crews finished replacing old-fashioned dial-type water meters with digital ones that are more efficient to read each month.

“Ecstatic," Cicirello told The News when asked how he felt about the project's completion. “Should have been done years ago, though."

The city started replacing water meters in 2003, averaging about 100 per year.

As the project drug on, often put on the back burner for a variety of reasons, Cicirello continued prodding city officials to get it done.

This year, Kelley Zellner, the city's new public works director, purchased about 250 meters to finish the job — all 2,251 meters.

The new meters transmit usage data by radio waves, allowing employees to stay in their vehicles as they drive from customer to customer.

With the old meters, employees had to physically lift the meter cover, read the numbers and log them for each customer.

“Now it takes a day and a half," Zellner said. “Before, it would take almost a week. It eliminated a lot of man hours."

That's what Cicirello was waiting for.