Orland Park’s Public Works Committee is recommending the village upgrade its water meter system to make reading the village’s 23,000 meters more efficient.
Currently, village staff collect meter readings by driving through the village and picking up readings sent by a radio transmitter on each unit. But new transmitter technology would eliminate the need for drive-by readings by sending the data to antennas that could collect all meter readings in the village.
The three committee members unanimously voted to recommend the village accept HD Supply Waterworks’s proposal and install the FlexNet Fixed Meter Reading system, at a cost of $214,675.
That includes two antennas to collect meter readings, which would be installed on water towers at 179th Street and Wolf Road and 88th Avenue and Golfview Drive, as well as the servers needed to run the system, software support and training. Trustees also recommended authorizing an additional $120,000 to purchase the new SmartPoint transmitters.
As the village’s existing transmitters have been failing, village staff have replaced them with the new SmartPoint transmitters, and about 1,500 have been installed since 2012, said Orland Park Infrastructure Maintenance director John Ingram.
But there are about 23,000 meters in the village and to get the full benefits from the system the village will need to replace them all, so the project as a whole is estimated to cost about $3.7 million, said Orland Park Finance director Annmarie Mampe.
Though the village doesn’t have an estimate of how much the village expects to save with the new meter-reading system, Mampe said it should halve the amount of time village staff spend collecting readings, freeing one of the two employees responsible for meter readings free to focus on other work for the village.
“But there are a lot of other benefits going forward for residents,” she said.
The centralized collection system will let village staff monitor water usage in real time, potentially identifying leaks before residents have noticed the damage, Ingram said.
“It lets us understand usage at a much more individual basis,” Ingram said.
The proposal will go to the village board for final approval at its May 19 meeting.
At Monday night’s village board meeting, trustees approved a sales tax sharing incentive agreement to help bring a Mazda dealership to Orland Park.
Trustees unanimously agreed to back the deal the village reached with CJ Wilson Mazda, which would give the company half the sales tax revenue they generate over a period of up to seven years to reimburse renovation and some moving expenses, up to a maximum of $1.125 million.
CJ Wilson Mazda is purchasing a Tinley Park Mazda dealership and plans to relocate it to a vacant Mitsubishi dealership at 8910 W. 159th St. by the end of the month. Without the incentive agreement, “it was fifty-fifty” whether CJ Wilson would have settled on the Orland Park location, said general manager Eric Vates.
The village is estimating the deal will bring in almost $1.3 million in extra sales tax revenue, along with new jobs and property tax revenue, said director of the Orland Park Development Services Department Karie Friling.
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