Girard residents voice water line concerns at council meeting

On 21 News at 6 on Monday, our team told you about the replacement of a large water line in Girard that's leaving some people without water who live in a certain neighborhood in the city.

At Monday's city council meeting, a handful of those affected spoke up about their frustrations of not having water for several days and the lack of communication from the city. City officials explained they're doing what they can to help.

"A lot of people in Parkwood didn't know our water was going to be shut off," said Jody Colapietro, resident of Plymouth Ave. in Girard. "They don't use Facebook. They don't use social media. They had no idea."

Some homes in the Parkwood neighborhood continue to have no water as a century-old Trumbull Avenue water line is being replaced. Water pressure continues to cause concern for the attached line. Girard Fire Department continues to provide water to those affected.

"We are sorry that this particular thing did happen but we're hoping with the improvements we made, all of this will go away," said Jerome Lambert, Safety Director of Girard. 

The final set of water line connections is expected to be completed within the next week. Residents may not be able to get water until, at the earliest, Wednesday, October 26.

Some residents haven't had water since last week, continuing to express their frustration about the lack of notice.

"We didn't get any letter this was coming," said James Damelio, resident of S. Davis St. in Girard. "I didn't get a letter in the mail. Did anybody else get a letter? No, not a thing. We got nothing."

City officials including Mayor Melfi, Lambert and council members returned calls from those affected throughout the weekend, doing what they could in efforts to help them through the outage.

Mayor Melfi told the crowd they've invested more money in repairing the Parkwood neighborhood than anywhere else in the city.

"Just hang in there a little longer," Melfi told the crowd. "Nobody will know this 5 to 10 years from now. All the aggravation you went through. It's a major improvement to the neighborhood."

Mayor Melfi told 21 News once the project is completed, homeowners shouldn't face any more outages and will have better water pressure.