Willard City Administrator Wes Young said when he was brought on by the city in May 2024, one of his tasks was improving transparency and communication.
He got a chance to do just that earlier this year, as Willard navigated one of the stickiest challenges a small city faces: Raising utility rates. In Willard’s case, sewer and water rates. Young said no one likes raising rates, but at a certain point it needs to be done.
"The adjustment this time was quite substantial,” Young explained. He said it was “maybe not” adjusted as it should have been and was “put off” in the past.
Young said things were further complicated because Willard serves water customers inside its city limits and in unincorporated areas outside of town. The city wanted to charge, and has charged, these two customer bases separate fees. Young said customers living outside of city limits felt they didn’t have a voice.
His office and the City spent most of the end of 2024 and the start of 2025 working to make them feel heard and working with the city’s board of alders and the public to build consensus for a new fee structure that has since been implemented.
Part of that work was establishing a new water advisory board for the city.
Young said the goal was to “give those individuals a voice,” explaining that “the composition of the board requires at least one, but no more than two members be from outside of city limits.” He said this reflects the distribution of the city’s customer base.
That board will meet for the first time Wednesday, June 4, at 5:30 in Willard’s City Hall.
Young said they’ll get an orientation this week. He said he is leaving the agenda up to them and hoping they can bring ideas and feedback from the public back to the city. He does know they’ll be reviewing rates at some point in the next year. The ordinance establishing the board also established an annual review of water and sewer rates to prevent another future sudden jump.
Local governments often struggle with citizen engagement. Willard City Clerk Rebecca Hanson said she hopes Willard residents and water customers see the effort city leaders made to grow from the challenge this decision posed.
"There was a lot of frustration,” Hanson explained. “This was a very difficult thing for a lot of the participants in our meetings to go through. But there was an opportunity there, and I think we took it and took the chance to become better.”
And Young said communication and public feedback are essential. He has seen residents becoming more engaged through this process and hopes that it continues.
“It's better to be engaged and informed and have those ideas coming from the widest net." Young said. “As government, we try to do the best that we can, but it doesn't mean we have all the ideas available.” He said this experience has marked a change in engagement in Willard, “and hopefully this board will be another part of that positive change.”