City of Westerville, OH
10/02/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/02/2025 14:28
Proposed Charter Amendment
On July 25, 2025, petitions for a citizen-initiated charter amendment were submitted to the City of Westerville. After a 10-day review period, the City provided the petitions to the Board of Elections on August 4, 2025.
On August 14, 2025, the Franklin County Board of Elections certified that the petition was sufficient and contained enough valid signatures. As a result, Westerville City Council is/was legally required, under the Ohio Constitution, to submit the proposed charter amendment to voters.
The amendment would impact the Westerville Electric Division (WED) and Westerville Water Division (Water) advanced meter program, requiring these departments to operate, manage and staff a separate and independent metering system for manual meter reading.
Utility grade manual electric meters are not commonly manufactured, and the City discontinued staff positions for meter reading when advanced metering was installed. Because of these factors, operational costs would be subsidized through the rates paid by utility customers who do not choose to have a manual meter.
In 2024, the City's utilities finalized a decade-long phased implementation of advanced metering, bringing the City's public power and water system utilities to modern technology standards. No new public funds were levied for the implementation of this technology improvement.
Advanced meters allow the utility, owned and operated by the City of Westerville, to read power and water usage automatically. As a result, meter readers no longer come onto homeowner property to conduct readings.
Due to the costs associated with operating two distinct utility metering systems, both automated and manual, the City of Westerville raised concerns about the proposed amendment. The proposed amendment would require changes to current operations and would affect system costs and the efficiency of processes and services. Ultimately this would impact future power and water rates for the vast majority of Westerville residents who are utility customers.
Customers who would choose to have a manual meter would also be exempt from services and programs, including automatic electric shut-off in the event of a home fire.
ADVANCED METERING INITIATIVE | City of Westerville Website
City of Westerville, OH published this content on October 02, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on October 02, 2025 at 20:28 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]