Mt. Pleasant approves major transformer purchase, delays a fire billing ordinance

MT. PLEASANT—The Mt. Pleasant City Council approved a $653,054 electrical transformer purchase April 28, adopted several city policies and delayed a proposed fire department billing ordinance after council members said they needed to see the missing rate schedule before voting.

The transformer purchase was the largest action item on the agenda. The council approved Requisition No. 042601 to Wesco for an MVA transformer for Substation 3. The official agenda listed the request at $653,054.

Power Superintendent Shane Ward told the council the city has searched for a transformer that would work with its system and match the impedance needed to tie parts of the electrical system together.

“I’ve been looking for the last year, year and a half, trying to find a huge transformer that we can match the impedance so we can tie the system together,” Ward said. “But I could not find the transformer through all of our vendors.”

Ward said the transformer must be within 5% of the other transformer’s impedance so the systems can be tied together. He said the unit will be built in the United States and has a long lead time.

“They’re two years out,” Ward said.

Ward said the city has money in its power impact fee fund and the substation project appears on the city’s capital facilities plan. City officials said the power impact fee fund had about $720,000 when the last audit closed, and the city had collected about another $200,000 since then.

The city will not pay the full amount at once. Ward said the purchase calls for 30% due when the city orders the transformer, another 30% when the city approves the engineering drawings and the remaining 40% when the transformer ships.

Ward said shipping alone will cost about $18,000. He said impact recorders will be placed on the transformer during transport to monitor vibration or other problems while it is being hauled.

The council also approved a $15,619.31 purchase from Diamond Mountain Marketing for lighting at the Veterans Memorial. Council members directed staff to code the expense to the Veterans Memorial fund rather than the power fund.

Ward said the lighting plan would use top-down lighting instead of ground-up lights.

“We’re not doing ground-up lights,” Ward said. “We’re going to pull the top down, just so it lights up the whole area.”

The council adopted Resolution 2026-05, creating a paperless utility billing policy. Under the resolution, paperless billing becomes the standard method for utility bills, notices and related communications beginning Aug. 1. Customers may request paper bills through an exemption process if they cannot reasonably access or use electronic billing.

The uploaded resolution says customers must complete a city exemption form and provide a specific reason. It also allows the form to be submitted in person, by mail, electronically or by another city-approved method.

That flexibility came up during the meeting after a council member questioned whether older residents or others who cannot come to city hall would still be able to request paper bills.

“We’re going to work with those people,” Mayor Michael Olsen said.

The council delayed Ordinance 2026-07, which would establish mitigation rates and a billing program for services provided by the Mt. Pleasant City Fire Department.

The ordinance would allow the fire department to charge mitigation rates for emergency and non-emergency services. It says charges may include personnel, apparatus, equipment and supplies. It also says claims may be submitted to insurance carriers, responsible parties may be billed if no insurance applies and collected money would offset service costs.

A council member said the council needed to know exactly what services would be billed before adopting the ordinance.

“If somebody has a house fire in town, are we going to bill for that?” the council member asked. “Or is this more like somebody has a car fire on the highway outside the town, and then we bill insurance for that?”

City staff said the missing rate schedule included items such as car fires, extrication, false alarms, illegal fires and water incidents. Council members also asked for more information about lift-assist calls, including calls involving taxi services bringing patients home from hospitals.

The council postponed the ordinance until fire chief Sam Draper can provide the rate schedule and clarify which services would be billed.