Sierra Madre residents who may not have succeeded in hitting mandatory water conservation targets established by the city this year may avoid getting fined by the city for the time being.
The Sierra Madre City Council will discuss on Tuesday whether to delay the penalty phase of the town's water conservation ordinance because of difficulties in calculating water usage for some customers.
The issue is that in some cases, water meter readers recorded water use over a 72 day period instead of the 60 day period that the city intended to use to compare to historical 60-day usage, according to the city's staff report.
The restrictions passed in May by the City Council and later amended in June mandated that residents make a 20 percent usage cut compared to past years or face fines, a response to a dry winter that resulted in a reduction of local water sources that Sierra Madre relies on.
According to the city's figures, the city as a whole has surpassed or come very close to the 20 percent mark in the last three months, with a 19.8 reduction in July compared to usage in July in an earlier year, a 26.6 percent reduction in August and a 19.6 percent reduction in September to date.
Consequently, city staff do not feel it should be a priority to penalize individuals who may not have reduced use as significantly, according to the report.
If passed, the city would postpone penalties on excessive water usage until bills collected after November 2013.
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