No change to utility bill responsibility

CLOVERDALE -- The recent Cloverdale Town Council meeting saw a heated exchange between the council and audience members over a large utility bill write-off and a proposal to amend Ordinance 2012-4 Section 9-15.

“In your pamphlet you will see some information that I gave you,” Clerk-Treasurer Cheryl Galloway began. “The next two pages are write-offs; there’s no way we can get ahold of them; they left without paying their bill. It’s $20,094.41. This is really no different than being a store and we’re having a high shoplifting because people are running out on the bills. We’re using money and we just keep writing huge write-offs.”

Since Dec. 2015, the council has written off a total of $29,783.34 in unpaid utility bills, the majority due to bankruptcy but some also to death (Resolutions 2015-10 and 2016-2). Like the $20,000 asked by Clerk-Treasurer Galloway during the October meeting, the write-offs included bills from as far back as 2009.

“So I was talking to (Attorney Allan Yackey) to find out how we could do this, how other towns did it,” Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said, “and Allan suggested that we amend Ordinance 2012-4 in Section 9-15 and put in wording that would say that the homeowners would be responsible for the bill. Do I have (the council’s) permission to amend that ordinance and have it ready for (your consideration) the next meeting?”

Seeing several hands, President Coweta Patton opened the floor for comments from the audience, the majority being landlords.

“I disagree with this whatsoever,” Herman Cox said. “It is hard enough to rent places in this town, mainly, in my opinion, due to the high cost of the water and sewage in this town. The gas company and the electric company does not do this. They eventually get it, or they take you to small claims. I personally think it should remain that way. And if the bill still remains in the property owner’s name, it’s going to be that much harder to collect the water and sewage bill, and they won’t pay attention to what they’re using.”

Clerk-Treasurer Galloway responded that going to small claims court had yielded little to no results.

“Last year we took 45,” Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said, “and we didn’t hardly collect maybe five of them. The State Board of Accounts said that was unacceptable and we got dinged for it.”

Attorney Yackey also commented, “The town of Brooklyn had this problem. When those bills aren’t paid basically, the rest of the rate payers pay for them. When Brooklyn did this ... my understanding is that the property owner simply conveys that bill to the tenant, collects the money from the tenant for the bill.

“Initially the property owners all objected to it, but over a period of time, many of them decided that it made the situation better for themselves. Many of the property owners in Brooklyn discovered that, after this change was made, now they had two choices. One, they could up their deposits by $200, or it put them in a better position to allow people to move in with a lower deposit who would not have come in at all because they couldn’t afford both the utility deposit and the (renter’s deposit).“

The discussion continued for about another 40 minutes, with landlords continuing to raise objections and concerns about being responsible for their tenanat’s water and sewage bill, having to collect money from them twice (once for rent and once for utilities) and how it would affect their competitiveness.

“You’re putting the collection on my back instead of the town’s back,” Ron Smith said. “That’s not my job is to collect their water bill. And you don’t collect my rent and I don’t collect your water bill. I don’t use their water; they use their water.”

Other topics brought up were the use of the food and beverage tax, the legal process for shutting off utlities and notifying tenants of delinquent bills, how the town currently deals with delinquent utility users, the effectiveness of small claims court and collection agencies, the difficulty of finding runaway tenants and general dissatisfaction with the Town Council and Cloverdale.

In speaking of the number of write-offs and the required $200 utility deposit, Vice President Don Sublett said, “It shows a decline the last few years. It’s going down. So the process we have is having an effect,” after Cindy Hofmann had made a chart showing that six of the write-offs were from 2015 and one from 2016. The $200 deposit was passed in Dec. 2015 as Resolution 2015-10.

“I would venture to say that we have not given this $200 deposit program sufficient time to mature through and reduce these late bills and expensive bills that we’ve seen in the past,” Don Gedert said. “I think we need to proceed with that program first before we jump in and change everything to a different program because of an accumulation of some 6, 7, 8 years of back bills.”

But Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said the deposit would not be enough to solve the entire problem.

“I can have better use of (Deputy Clerk) Trina than making 150 phone calls for people to come in and pay their bill,” Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said. “We have 302 renters now that we’re shuffling and it’s all different. And it’s just really hard to keep up with 302.”

Ron Smith responded, “Well, who’s to say the landlord’s going to pay it on time too? You might have to deal with me. I may not want to pay it; I may drag my feet. What’s the difference?”

Ultimately, President Patton ended the discussion with, “Well, I think we’ve discussed this long enough. This is something we have to write off?”

Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said that the council could “leave it on the books.”

“It just stays on Keystone (town’s budget software),” Clerk-Treasurer Galloway said, “and then when the State Board of Accounts comes in they’ll say, ‘Why are all these bills still on your books when they’ve been finalized?’”

President Patton made a motion to write off the $20,094.41 in unpaid utility bills, but was not seconded.

The issue of amending Ordinance 2012-4 Section 9-15 was overlooked at that time, but Cox reminded the council while it was signing papers related to another ordinance.

“Yeah,” Cox said, “I figured you might as well clear it up this month so you don’t have to go all through it again next month.”

Judy Hacker, another audience member, told the council, “You need to make a motion to turn it down as Don Sublett suggested.”

“You didn’t make a motion,” President Patton said to Vice President Sublett.

Vice President Sublett responded, “There were no changes in it. (Clerk-Treasurer Galloway) was just asking for it. It’s not written up.”

Clerk-Treasurer Galloway answered, “No, I’m just asking you permission -- “

“So, how can we vote -- I can’t vote on something that’s not written down,” Vice President Sublett said. “My vote right now is not to amend it.”

The motion was seconded by Gary Bennington.

“All opposed?” Dan Moon, an audience member, interjected after a silence.

President Patton initialy said “nay,” but then said “I really don’t know.”

Dennis Padgett responded, “Sometimes when you don’t know you’ve got to go with the majority of the people.”

President Patton and Hofmann said “aye,” and the motion not to amend Ordinance 2012-4 Section 9-15 passed unanimously.

“I want to make a comment to the audience,” Vice President Sublett said. “This water bill is critical ... We save every drop of water we can because we try to keep our bill down. I’m just telling you to tell your renters to put a brick in their toilet.”

“I’ve replaced every one of my toilets with the water-saver toilets and they have paid for theirselves,” Gedert responded. “Within one year the toilets -- with the water savings paid for the toilet.”

“Amen,” Vice President Sublett said. “Amen.”

In other developments:

-- Absences: Larry Fidler was absent.

-- Claims: The council approved the claims at a total of $316,481.43, a decrease of $43,428.47 from last month and of $4,218.76 from the year’s average.

-- Demolition: The council approved a bid from Titan Trucking and Excavating to demolish 631 Stardust Way for $7,500. Two other bids came in at $15,350 and $9,900.

-- Ordinance 2016-14: The council approved adopting Ordinance 2016-14, the 2017 budget for appropriation and tax rates.

-- Ordinance 2016-16: The council was introduced to Ordinance 2016-16, “Salary Ordinance for the Year 2017.” It is set to be considered for approval Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Cloverdale Town Hall.

The next Cloverdale Town Council meeting is set for Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. in the Cloverdale Town Hall.