Executive Director Lakewood MUA Justin Flancbaum Interview with TLS

hi uh good afternoon my name is Justin flans bam I'm executive director at the Lake Municipal Utilities Authority and we welcome to Lake scoop to offices this afternoon um I was asked to talk about uh a new metering program that the authority embarked upon a few years ago uh several years ago the authority uh found a need to replace many many of our meters uh a lot of our meters were were original meters that uh dated back decades 20 30 40 years ago and uh uh like wine meters uh uh get worse with age as opposed to better uh kind of like the human body um that as we as we age we get slower uh and meters are meters are the same are the same way um in researching several different types of metering programs and metering systems we decided to go with what's called an automated meter reading system or AMR uh an automated meter reading system eliminates the needs for uh meter readers uh so we could use the same staff uh but utilize them toward it's more productive tasks as opposed to going out and reading meters uh it it eliminates safety concerns both for our staff and also for our customers so we don't have to have people uh going on to private property to read meters um it increases our uh accuracy in our meter reading and overall it makes for a much more efficient operation uh so there are several different types of automated metering systems that you could that you could utilize what we decided to do was to go with a what's called a fix based metering system um and essentially with that is in layman's terms is that we installed uh an antenna on top of our uh water tank that we have here at our main headquarters on New Hampshire Avenue and the idea is is that the meters would transmit data in real time to the antenna that we have here and then that antenna would then shoot the data into directly into our building system uh so uh it it it would come in at intervals of of four times a day every six hours and it gives us real time data of of of all our customers usages the meter that we chose was something that's called the eyl meter the I PE meter is built as the the smart meter uh it's made of completely U of composite materials it's made of plastic there are no moving parts and uh it has a digital display screen that reads by the gallon uh so as opposed to the oldtime meters uh they read by the Thousand by the thousands of gallons um this meter you can actually see by the gallon how much water you're using so about 2 and A2 years ago uh we decided decided that as opposed to replacing all of our meters at once which uh the old meters that would not be able to be integrated into the fixed based antenna system uh numbered about 6,500 and uh to kind of get a feel for what the product for what the final product would be we decided to do it in two phases the first phase uh we would install about 140 MERS and we scattered those installations all around our service area so uh we installed some of the industrial parks some on the southern end of our system some on the Northern end of our system to see how everything would integrate into our uh antenna and to get a feel for the product so uh that would be the phase one and then the phase two would be the major replacement of approximately 6,500 met system line uh so we we we started phase one and uh we did the first few dozen installations uh and then one day I got I got a phone call a very interesting phone call on a Thursday afternoon from one of the local Builders and he said Justin we have a problem and I said what's the problem you know we're here to solve problems uh and he said well uh you just installed a couple new meters one of my new developments and um my customers called me and said you have to remove the meters immediately and replace them with the old meters so I I I was I was I was taken back and I said well you know why and he said well um they have they have concern some concerns regarding Shas and I said well you know um give me these customer phone numbers I'm going to call them and I I told them rest assured that we'll do whatever we can to alleviate their concerns we'll take out the meters that day uh they'll be out plenty of time before shabas but in the meantime I wanted to talk to the customers to see what their issue was so um I I called one of the customers and what he told me was he noticed that uh when he flipped this the the lid on the top of the meter the meter had a digital display and the digital display was constantly moving so in other words as you run water whether it's in your sink or your shower or flush the toilet um it it reads by the gallon and so I said okay so what's what's the issue and he said I think there's an issue ofo uh so the issue is is that he was concerned that because one can't write on shabas that by turning on the water uh and by uh the the meter creating new numbers uh there was there was a real issue of CA of writing on shabis so here I was and a Thursday afternoon and I said well um okay I said I I completely understand and we removed the there were two 3 meters in that one development uh and that was the only area at that time where uh there was a concern uh regarding the laws of shabas so we immediately removed those two or three meters and um and I I knew right away this was something that I was going to have to address and look into um so what we did was uh at the time we we we uh we installed these new meters in areas where there were no concern of Shas and we held off on the other areas and I knew we would have to find some sort of solution just to give you a little bit background um the Municipal Utilities Authority is is governed and the policy and decision making uh is is decided by our Board of Commissioners our Board of Commissioners uh is chaired by Senator singer uh Vice chaired by Ray Kohls uh includes PG Waxman uh Anne fish Mike Serna Craig theal these are all people uh local people who have been part of the community for decades and who understand the needs of the various communities in Labor uh and they directed me to find a solution to this issue so so here we were and just to give you a little further how this issue became more complicated was that uh I had I had extensive dis discussions with uh an organization called the New Jersey environmental infrastructure trust the infrastructure trust is a organization in New Jersey that loans Money to Municipal entities at at at at at rates which um just to give you an example uh this particular uh program that we did in metering replacement on was 75% of the money was interest free for 20 years uh 25% of the money was half market rate for 20 years so um I we basically locked up a loan from the state from the infrastructure trust for approximately $2 million and we were ready to go on the program and here we were uh with a situation on our hands that had to be that had to be resolved uh prior to finalizing in the deal so uh I contacted the the meter manufacturer and I explained the issue to that so again the most obvious issue was the issue of SEO the issue that there may have been an issue of writing on jobs and I explained to them that uh we have to develop some sort of meter that uh the digital display is never on meaning that the digital display should turn on when you flip the lid but it should turn back off and if we could do that it would alleviate the concerns at least the concerns of writing on shs because um and and and and they were receptive to the idea what I explained to them was this issue arose in Lake New Jersey um they would probably encounter similar issues throughout North America being that every major metropolitan area in the United States of America and in Canada has a sizable uh observant Jewish population and that this issue would probably be a recurring one throughout America and it would behoove their conf to find some sort of solution in the meantime uh I was contacted by masas Miller who was the mayor at the time uh who got who received a phone call from the star k in Baltimore apparently the city of Baltimore uh was also considering the same type of meter that we were installing here for the entire city of Baltimore so that amounted to several 100,000 meters as opposed to the 6,500 uh uh meters that we were going to install in lak um and the the uh constituents of the mayor of Baltimore contacted him and uh and explained them that they would have an issue uh stalling these meters in their neighborhoods on chabas being that there was a uh there was a potential issue of violin and shabis so the meter company was aware of this issue and now it became my my my warning to them that they would uh encounter this issue throughout every uh major metropolitan area really became uh reality to that so about 9 months later they developed a prototype the first one in North America and what we did was uh we we developed a meter that when you opened up the lid firstly the digital display was never on when you opened up the lid there's there's a 2C delay after about two or 3 seconds the digital display comes on so a customer can see uh what their meter read is or if we uh have to go for whatever reason into a customer's house we could see that the meter's reading and then when we leave the display open the the numbers automatically turn off after about 30 seconds and they won't come back on unless you close the lid and then you have to physically reopen the lid and again there's the 2-c delay and then again it's only on for 30 seconds and then shuts off so um we we we we developed we developed that meter specifically for our purpose to alleviate the concern of least of at least the ca the writing aspect of the of the new meter um throughout this process or I should say prior prior to acting meter manufacturer I was in contact with RAB SCH Ginger here of L um and I explained to him what my idea was and and he agreed that if we could accomplish that that would be something that would be acceptable as far as the issue of CA goes so when we got this first prototype which was the first of its kind uh in in the world as far as I know uh Rabbi gizer came here to our headquarters and we did a sample run on the meter and lo and behold it didn't work the uh the screen the screen uh it turned on and it never turned off not only that the meters the numbers never turned and it was it was it was a bad prototype so we had to wait another couple months and the the meter manufacturer gave me what they called a prototype number two um at reer came back to our offices and we we we tested it and it worked exactly how we were hoping it would work uh now the ca issue was basically resolved uh through that now there was still a question question of of electricity and the the the writing issue is easier for me to explain uh the electricity issue I'm not going to pretend like I'm a I'm a I'm I'm a a POS or an expert in this at all but I I can just explain the basics um the meter is constantly uh registering data it's basically like a little computer uh it never stops registering and there's always a u an electronic current running through the meter the meter uh works on a magnet the the magnet detects even the slightest flow through the meter and again the data is the current is always running through the meter and that data is stored within the the brains of the meter so to speak and then ultimately transferred to our antenna which it goes which is then transferred into our Billing System um so the electricity issue was something that had to be looked into further uh what we did was Rabbi gizer was able to contact Rabbi shomo Miller who's the head of the base here in l uh and through through the help of Rabbi gissinger and also manasha Miller who was able to set up a meeting a face to face meeting with Rabbi schom Miller myself Rabbi Ginger uh and we we were able to obtain a Chua from Rabbi Miller regarding the alas regarding the laws of electricity as they relate to our meter and our metering system uh this the meeting occurred uh between PES and sometime of this past year and RAB Miller was satisfied uh that the that the issues of electricity posed no uh POS no issues with regards to the laws of shabs uh and and we obtained this Chua the Chua was written for mil ra and um uh just just to just to uh recap uh this this was something that took it took us a long time uh the the our commissioners here at the MUA uh were uh were were certain that we'd be able to find some sort of resolution to the problem uh they they were supportive of uh and and encouraged uh a solution um we we were able to find a solution now and uh uh that's that's really what we do here uh the one of the benefits of having Utilities Authority a local Utilities Authority as your as your water and sewer provider is that is that we're local we're here we're we're uh we we we can't hide uh the again the Board of Commissioners have ran by local people people that understand the needs of all our communities in likely uh the employees the staff of the Utilities Authority are all local people uh if there are issues if customers have issues uh they call us they can come in we work everything out and that's really what we did with the meter uh we we resolved an issue for for one of our customer bases just like we resolve issues for anybody and we we're proud of what we did and we hope that um that that Lake would uh could appreciate the fact that they have Utilities Authority and the fact that uh we can we can do things uh to help our customers and help our community