All but one customer pay off delinquent sewage accounts
BULLSKIN TWP. – A series of hearings over the last year for delinquent customers of the Bullskin Township/Connellsville Township Joint Sewerage Authority has paid off with all but one account that remains outstanding. Members of the authority on Wednesday learned from solicitor John Cupp that two hearings before Magisterial District Judge Robert Breakiron of Bullskin Township resulted in one of two customers agreeing to pay in full or go into default and be incarcerated in the Fayette County Jail.
“I think we have everyone taken care except for one couple that moved and we had them served at their new address,” said Cupp.
According to Cupp, the couple will face a hearing on the matter in April or May.
The authority started cracking down on delinquent accounts in August 2005 after getting fed up with not receiving the $1,200 required tap-in fees from 22 of its 866 customers and agreeing to release their names to the local media.
Since then, those customers have continued to undergo several hearings before Breakiron and Magisterial District Judge Ronald Haggerty of Connellsville.
While the authority has filed ongoing criminal complaints against the delinquent customers, Cupp said the magisterial district judges also fined several of them.
Cupp added that Haggerty’s office is waiting to receive a written plea from one customer before scheduling another hearing.
In an unrelated matter the authority heard from Kevin Mazurik of Connellsville who inquired about the fees associated with extending a sewer line on property he purchased on Norton Boulevard in Connellsville Township.
Mazurik said he was under the impression from the owner of the subdivision that sewerage was already there.
Fred Elcock, authority secretary, said after reading a copy of the authority’s amended ordinance for such fees it would be up to Mazurik to pay for the cost to extend a sewer line while Glenn Wolfe, engineer for Widmer Engineering, said he would verify the fee through the authority’s rules and regulations.