Monday night, Ron Selley, owner of Selley’s Cleaners in West Branch, asked the West Branch city council to help him out with his water bill.

This isn’t the first time the city has been approached about water rates. The owner of West Branch Cleaners came before the council before the end of the year, saying if he didn’t get help, he’d have to close up shop. At the end of the year, that’s what he did.

There’s no doubt that the increased water rates are causing people a lot of problems. And when your business operates primarily around using water, it’s no surprise that you’ll be taking a bigger hit than other water customers.

However, before the city council makes a decision on whether to include some sort of discount for Laundromats, council members need to think long and hard about what effect that might have in the long run.

Certainly Laundromats aren’t the only customers using a lot of water. Car washes, the hospital and restaurants are some of the biggest users of water in the city. If the city council is going to give Laundromats a discount to keep them from going out of business, they’re going to have to offer that discount to other businesses as well if water rates cause them serious trouble.

But why should it stop there? What if you’re a city resident, and it comes between paying your water bill or paying your electric bill? Or your gas bill. Or your mortgage payment. Then the city had better be right there, ready and willing to give those customers a discount.

The problem is, the city hasn’t raised water and sewer rates simply to pad its pockets. Rates were raised to pay for new water wells that had to be drilled — the city couldn’t continue using the water that it had been using for years due to new regulations from the Department of Environmental Quality.

Sure, prior to using the new wells, the city had been using water from West Branch Township, but it also received many complaints about water quality. Council members were left between a rock and a hard place. Either have poor water, or raise rates for a new well. It was a no-win situation.

Rates have also been raised to help pay for the Wastewater Treatment Plant project, which has to be done. The plant is over capacity, and without reconstruction, the city could be facing major fines down the road if the system failed.

So rates were raised to pay for these two projects. And when discounts are given to some customers, for whatever reasons, that money has to come from somewhere. In reality, it will wind up coming from the taxpayers.

In the end, no one wants to see people go out of business, but businesses need to find a way to cope with the current situation, just like city residents have to.

And if the city can afford to give some businesses a discount without having to find another source for those funds, then all water customers deserve a discount, not just the biggest users.