It’s time to catch up with Elmo City Mayor James Winn, who took time from his busy schedule to speak over the telephone with Castle Country Radio about the city’s water rates, paying city utilities and city hall landscaping project.

The last city council meeting there was time spent speaking on raising water rates for the community. “We had a public meeting; I think all the towns in Emery County have had this now. The Special Service District has been charging a lower rate over several years and they decided that they better charge what it costs them to install water, sewer and those things so they upped the rate by $2,000.00 and so it was a significant raise. We were able to raise a little bit less than that to help our citizens out,” stated Mayor Winn. Community members will notice that the cost of garbage pickup has increased as well. Like most things rising in price around the area and nationally these changes had to be made to accommodate inflation prices.

The city has made it easier for citizens to make their monthly utility payments which is now available online. “We signed up so we can use Express Bill Pay, you can still access it through the Emery County website, how you pay your bill just like before, its just they give you more options, debit and credit cards, as well as you can use a digital check – that kind of stuff. It’s a better way, and its actually easier for us to keep track of the bill and those kinds of things better with this new software,” explained Mayor Winn. The city also implemented a new accounting software across the board to help manage the city’s finances.

Community members have watched the city hall get a facelift and it is finally coming to an end. “We had one more step to do and it’s taken us a little while. We’ve been done with the remodel for a while but we had the outside that we needed to finish. We needed to put some grass out front and fill in where there was some of the rocks with cement and that kind of thing. So it looks better and also run the water away from the building better to make it last longer,” said Mayor Winn. The city also plans to reinstall the flag pole in front of the building. He appreciates the citizen’s patience during this construction project.

To keep posted on the happenings taking place in Elmo visit their Facebook page.