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C-Town Wings serves customers at Taste of Celina in 2025.
CELINA - Spectators of Celina Little League games played at Westview Park will have the opportunity to get a bite to eat this season from various food trucks, should legislation moving through council chambers gain final approval.
Celina City Council passed first reading Monday night of an ordinance authorizing a lease agreement with Teresa May of Celina to hold a food truck event during city recreation games scheduled for May 12, 14, 19, 21, 26 and 28, and June 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 23 and 25.
For $1 per night, May will have exclusive use of a strip of concrete within Westview Park along Fairground Road to host food trucks, as space permits.
May said she has a firm commitment from Russet Rick, Fizzy Sips, Gudzy Dogs and Buckeye Soft Serve. However, the lease agreement also lists C-Town, Meats a Movin, Banks & Mia, Burtch's Barn to Table and Little Piggies as permitted food truck vendors.
"This is only for rec games. This has nothing to do with high school sports or anything like that," city safety service director Tom Hitchcock clarified. "We don't have anybody to run concessions anyways out there for the rec games. So this would provide a service that we currently aren't providing."
Two of the committed food truck vendors offer main entrées, another specializes in drinks and the other desserts.
"To me, it sounds like an amazing setup," May opined.
"It's a balanced meal," quipped Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel. "We would really have no issues with that at all. I think it fits very well (for what she wants to do)."
May said the food truck vendors are self-sufficient with their own water and power sources.
"We're all state-licensed. We go through a lot of testing to be state-certified for food handling, for safety protocol," May pointed out. "We're all fully insured, and we're just simply courteous of where we're set up at. We offer our own wastebaskets. We dispose of waste."
In other action, councilors passed final reading of legislation that will raise water rates 26.5% over the next two years to cover ballooning treatment expenses and big-ticket infrastructure projects on the horizon.
Effective April 1, under the residential classification, the minimum monthly bill will rise from $31.77 to $36.54.
Also, the trailer park rate will climb from $10.16 to $11.68 per 1,000 gallons and the bulk rate would rise from $10 to $20 per 1,000 gallons.
Under the rural classification, the minimum monthly bill will rise from $47.36 to $54.87. Also, the trailer park rate will rise from $19.62 to $22.62 per 1,000 gallons.
Aside from authorizing the first water hike since 2013, the legislation nudges up the Water Treatment Chemical Cost Adjustment mechanism from $2 to $2.75 per 1,000 gallons consumed/billed.
The WTCCA, added to monthly water bills in 2010, is designed to recover costs associated with chemicals used to treat the city's drinking water supply.
"As I said last meeting, we're not in the business of making money, but we can't be in the business of losing money - and that's what's going to happen if we don't adjust these rates," said council president Jason King.
Water customers, however, will see some relief in their monthly water bills in 2028 once the remaining debt on granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration upgrades to the water treatment plant is fully paid off and the $7 monthly GAC fee falls off, King added.
"We tried not to raise rates. We don't purposely try to wait until we have to play catch-up, but the costs have gone everywhere - at the grocery store, at the gas station," Hazel said. "As President King said, this is not tax dollars. This is pure rate money. Each one of your utilities of water, wastewater and electric, they must stand on their own by law. So they have to generate their own funds to do this. Tax money does not supplement any part of the utilities."
Councilors also Monday night also accepted a $7,500 donation from the Grand Lake Recreation Club to the Celina Fire Department for the purchase of water/ice rescue and dive equipment.
"This is something that does come every year by way of the Grand Lake Recreation Club. It's been coming for a few years," Hazel said. "We are just so grateful for service organizations and groups that come forward to donate money."
City council meets next at 7 p.m. March 23 in council chambers.
