Council OKs another round of water meter replacements

A fourth round of water meter installation will begin soon in the city of Dublin.

The Dublin City Council  approved a proposal from  Utility Solutions of America for the 2026 water meter installation project during a recent meeting at city hall.

“We’re trying to replace about 10 percent of our system per year,” said Dublin City Manager Josh Powell. “We have about 8,000 meters out there and this is going to replace 762 meters in the system. The vast majority of those are going to be three quarter inch meters, which are primarily residential meters.”

Powell said they budgeted $82,676 for this service and Utility Solutions of America was qualified and submitted a proposal for $78,600. 

“They are expecting the work to take at least three months to do, and we have previously purchased the meters themselves,” Powell said. “The council approved that and all of them have come in and they are at the warehouse and ready for the company to go in and do the installation. This is primarily going to be for the section of town that is south of East Jackson Street and east of Highway 19. It’s the Southside community and I believe that they will be able to begin working the next few weeks as soon as we tell them to go ahead.” 

Dublin Mayor Joshua Kight asked Powell to explain why the city was doing the water meter replacements.

“The water meters that are currently in our system are old and may not be accurate,” Powell said. “More water is probably going through than what’s actually being captured, but these meters are radio-reading meters and they are more efficient as far as being able to read them and get the data from them. It can provide a lot more information than what you get from the normal radio-dial meters that are out there in the system.” 

The city manager hopes this will be able to reduce the amount of labor that is required to read meters in the system. Kight said they are replacing 10 percent each year.

“This will be the fourth round, and after this round of replacements, that will be 40 percent of our roughly 8,000 meters will have been replaced with these radio read meters,” the mayor said.  

In other meeting news, the city council:

– Approved providing local government support to Women In Need of God’s Shelter (WINGS) for a grant application through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for the 2026 Emergency Solutions Grant Program.

“In the last several years we have provided local government support to WINGS and their application to seek grant funding through the Department of Community Affairs to support their operations,” Powell said. “WINGS provides resources to women who are in abusive or harmful relationships and provides a shelter for them if they need assistance in that regard. They also provide resources for them as far as in the legal world connecting them with the resources that are available in the community.” 

For WINGS to be able to apply for the grant, it has to show that the local government governing authority as the city council has reviewed it and approves of their use. It is a checkpoint for DCA to make sure WINGS is a valid organization that is functioning and should be in the community.

“This does not obligate us for any funds,” Kight said. “This just supports them showing that they are a legitimate organization that is functioning in our community.”

– Tabled a resolution to amend the permit fees and other associated fees for certain residential construction projects.

– Recognized Verlinda Chatman, human resources coordinator for the city, as the employee of the first quarter.

– Heard presentation from Mitch Griggs, president of the Dublin-Laurens County Economic Development Authority, gave a presentation to the council. 

– Heard citizens comments from Jody Hightower, who asked the council to look into the Sunday sales ordinances. Currently, last calls in downtown businesses have to be done at 11:40 p.m.

“That is hampering what I can do,” he said. “I do most of the booking downtown through businesses, and I am realizing that we import most of our talent from other places and they bring a crowd. I want to build up local talent, and I don’t want to put new artist in front of a restaurant crowd.” 

He would like for council to have a one-hour extension.

– Kight thanked Powell for going above and beyond in his job.

“Josh is basically always on duty,” Kight said. “It doesn’t matter what time of day, what day of the week it is. He responds very quickly to text messages and phone calls. It’s everything from small things to big things.”

At the previous city council meeting, a citizen approached a nuisance issue across the street from her. Kight said Powell talked with officials about what could be done.

“The next day we had city resources out there in that neighborhood and I think that situation has now been wrapped up,” Kight said. “There is always going to be more to do.” 

Another situation involved a very small issue that happened at one of the city parks.

“A text message went out around 6 p.m. and there was a response within two minutes,” Kight said.