water Topeka water Rates on display
The Gallon and the Check Henry McClure · MCRE Media · Topeka · September 2026 This is not a manifesto against factories. Reser’s employs about 1,500 people on S.E. 6th. Frito-Lay has been making snacks in Shawnee County since the 1950s. Goodyear has been on U.S. 24 since 1945. Mars built a chocolate plant here and still pays a large tax bill on the slice of the campus that is not exempt. Those facts stay on the page. This is a ledger. One column is the gallon. The other is the check — sales-tax cash, ten-year tax holidays, federal credits — already written under the same names. A third column is the house that pays $7.75 a thousand gallons and cannot deduct it. City Council is about to write the next four years of that ledger into the municipal code. Staff first proposed one price for the gallon. Industry objected. Staff came back with two prices and a higher house meter fee, and recommended that. If you only read one sentence before the meeting, read that one. The June list City...