Point Marion water shutoffs explained, questioned at meeting
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Holding a copy of a water bill, Point Marion Borough Secretary Art Strimel (left) explains the procedure for getting water service shut off.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Point Marion landlord Rusty Brooks voiced concern about the borough’s policies and procedures regarding water service shutoffs at its regular meeting last Wednesday.
Point Marion officials are contending with questions about the borough’s policies and procedures regarding delinquent payments for water service and subsequent service shutoffs.
In response to a borough landlord who asked for the procedure for getting water service turned off, borough Secretary Art Strimel explained that a notation on every bill states that customers who have questions about their bill service or need to discuss payment arrangements may call or come to the borough office.
Borough customers have approximately 25 days to pay their bill upon receiving it at the beginning of each month, Strimel said, adding that a late fee charge of 10 percent is imposed after an additional two-day grace period. That grace period is followed by a 10-day window in which customers can pay their bill before their service is shut off, Strimel said, noting a two-day grace period tacked onto that window as well.
“So you’re getting four days grace on a bill that’s 35 days old,” Strimel said. “If it’s not paid by then, as a courtesy to that customer, you get a termination notice that gives you 24 hours to pay the bill.”
An additional $50 charge is imposed for borough customers to have their service turned back on following a shutoff, Strimel added.
As Strimel noted during an Oct. 18 council meeting, delinquent water service accounts are a recurring issue throughout the borough.
A list of past due notices in the borough obtained by the Herald-Standard confirms Strimel’s statement that there were 194 bills with past due notices this month. Strimel added that there were 71 shutoff notices sent out and 11 shutoffs made.
“That’s just an every month occurrence,” Strimel said.
The list of past due notices shows a total of $57,094 in balances due to be paid, for an average of approximately $294 per balance.
When a borough landlord, Rusty Brooks, asked Strimel how many delinquent accounts there were during the meeting, council member Robert Wolfe said that there were 200, adding that he had the list. Strimel told Wolfe he “should not even have that list for the public,” and Wolfe stayed silent on the matter during the meeting from that point on.
Strimel and Wolfe both called for an executive session at different points during the public portion of the meeting, though, resulting in an executive session that lasted more than an hour.
Council President Gary Reynolds said the executive session was for legal matters, but a 1993 Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decision ruled that officials must be clear and specific as to why they meet behind closed doors in an executive session.
“It must be more than some generalized term which in reality tells the public nothing,” the Court stated in that decision. “To simply say ‘personnel matters’ or ‘litigation’ tells nothing. The reason stated must be of sufficient specificity to inform those present that there is, in reality, a specific, discrete matter or area which the board had determined should be discussed in executive session.”
During the public portion of the meeting, Brooks said his tenant’s water was shut off after a bill of a little more than $100 and suggested that penalizing delinquent customers was “not being done evenly.”
“It’s a small town. If you talk to Art (Strimel), you talk to somebody, you’ve got a legitimate problem, we’ll work with you,” council member Chris Kaczmarczyk said in response. “We’ve always been that way.”
Strimel said in response to Brooks’s questioning that the highest dollar amount on a shutoff notice he knows of belongs to a business in the borough that owes more than $1,000.
“No, it’s a little bit more than that,” Strimel added, correcting himself. “But there’s circumstances involved in it. Now do we shut down a business?”
When Brooks protested that there should be “no gray areas,” Strimel countered that such an approach would have resulted in 71 shutoffs made this month instead of just 71 shutoff notices sent out.
“I’d just like for somebody on council to take a look at the list of delinquents, whether they be businesses or individuals, and the amounts,” Brooks said.
Strimel said in response to another question from Brooks earlier in the meeting that any council member can call him or come to his office at any time to examine delinquent account information and make suggestions.
“Or I’ll be glad to turn this over to any of them to do it,” Strimel added.