Meter meltdown

They don’t know how many residential or commercial water meters in the town are functional.

They don’t know when the last time the town employee responsible for reading the ones that work — a man who remains on the payroll — has done his job.

They seem to agree that because of the above, water bills have, for an unknown number of years, been generated by, as one Town Board member put it, “guessing.”

And while another member of the board suggested the revenue lost as result has been “six figures every month” for as long as a decade or more, the truth is, nobody knows for sure.

So, when the Mount Olive Town Board announced it would be holding a special-called meeting for the purpose of taking on two “action items” — to consider “approval of a reduction in the current (8) percent increase of water bill rates” and “approval of a reduction in the current (7.5) percent property tax rates” — the move set off alarm bells inside the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

But even after NCDEQ Project Manager Caroline Bari emailed board members to encourage them to “strongly consider the ramifications of reducing rates at this time,” Mayor Jerome Newton convened the Monday meeting anyway.

And while no action was taken during the session — and the mayor denied, despite what was stated on the agenda he approved, that potentially lowering water rates when Bari pointed out that current water revenues were “insufficient to cover daily expenses” and “to fund the infrastructure needs as relates to the Consent Order” signed by the town as part of the moratorium it has been under for a decade was even on the table — the discussion that unfolded inside Town Hall, and the email Bari sent in response to the meeting being promoted, were revealing.

The email outed that the town is “currently under investigation by the Division of Water Resources due to repeated violations of the Consent Order,” and that “follow-on actions regarding these violations are imminent.”

And during the discussion, it was revealed that nobody inside Town Hall seems to know how much money Mount Olive should be collecting for what Commissioner Gena Messer-Knode characterized as “the biggest commodity we have that we sell.”

“At what point did we decide it was a good idea to start averaging water bills?” she asked during the meeting.

“I can’t answer that question,” Newton replied. “It was before my time.”

Messer-Knode tilted her head, as if to signal confusion.

“At what point did my current water meter stop working? Because I have a water meter in my front yard,” she then said. “At what point did it stop — like, the water meter man stopped coming? Is he still on the payroll?

Newton, again, replied.

“Yes,” he said. “As far as we know, he’s still on the payroll.”

Messer-Knode kept going.

“So, we have a water meter man on the payroll, and I have a water meter, but you’re guessing my water bill?” she said. “And you can only tell me this has been going on for greater than two years, because you have been mayor now going into your second term, correct?”

At that point, Newton got visibly upset and raised his voice.

“Yes, I am going into my second term, but we’re not going to get into this right now,” the mayor said. “If you want to discuss that with me later, we can, but we’re not going to discuss it here. We’re not going to do what you’re about to do.”

But Messer-Knode was not finished.

“How can I vote on an increase or decrease when I don’t understand?” she asked. “I’m just saying it’s been at least two years we’ve been guessing on water bills.”

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The truth is, Newton does not have the answers Messer-Knode — and many town residents — have been asking about how the water meter and billing issues happened and why they have been allowed to fester for so many years.

He admitted as much Monday.

And there were no department heads or DEQ officials at the meeting to turn to for an explanation.

Interim Town Manager Glenn Holland was not even in attendance.

But Commissioner Delreese Simmons shared bits of pieces of information he said he received from Holland about the situation — and defended Newton’s lack of knowledge because, “it happened before the mayor got here.”

“It actually happened under other mayors in the past, way before this mayor took the oath of office,” he said.

As for the “guessing” what amounts should be charged to water customers?

“The guessing started whenever Glenn was put in this seat as town manager,” Simmons said.

And, in his view, the biggest offenders from a lost revenue standpoint are businesses he alleged intentionally defrauded the town.

“We lose more revenue from the commercial businesses. I can’t tell you guys who, but we have a lot of businesses, some of them are only paying less than $20 a month for their water bill,” Simmons said. “Some of these businesses are friends of friends of friends. We’re losing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. It’s six figures this town loses every month.”

Messer-Knode, who spoke to Wayne Week the day after the meeting, was not convinced.

“I have not seen any evidence that we have large commercial establishments that are not paying water bills, but I’ve only been on the board for two weeks,” she said. “And I’m tired of sitting down with people. I want to see the documents. There should be a master list somewhere … of every address.”

And she characterized the fact that the people who have been on the board for years — and Holland — seem to have no proof of anything as “mind-boggling.”

“How can you say we can continue with the current administration we have over there?” Messer-Knode said. “You can’t.”

As for her heated exchange with Newton?

“I didn’t think I went far enough. Remember what he said to me. He said, ‘I know what you’re trying to do here and we’re not going to go there.’ What was I trying to do?” she said. “The mayor treats women differently. I will go on the record with that. He treats me differently. I watched him treat the women on the last board differently. He lets the men speak. The women have to ask him, ‘May I make a comment?’ I’m not going to do that. It is 2026 in two weeks. Mayor Newton needs to realize I was elected two to one over my opponent and I’m not going anywhere. So, during the discussion period, I will ask as many questions as I want to ask.”

And she will continue to demand both that no more time on meetings that “accomplish nothing” is wasted while Mount Olive remains engulfed in several crises and that she is treated with the respect she feels she has earned.“The meeting should have never been called. If you’re going to have the meeting, have the information there,” Messer-Knode said. “So, the mayor needs to remember that. And he needs to remember that he’s a figure head. His job is to be a liaison between the town manager and the board. So, he should shaking hands and kissing babies and being a liaison. He does not need to dictate to me what questions I can ask and when and how I can ask them. I think the people of Mount Olive need to know that their water bills are basically being guessed.”