Too much work, and it eats up too much time.
To be specific, going out and placing notices of approaching water service termination on doors of homes whose residents haven’t paid their utility charges.
These are among the reasons the City of Auburn cited Monday night for potential rule changes related to notifying property owners their water service is about to be turned off and placing liens on their property.
In the main, the new rules extend the time water service customers have to pay up, as follows:
• Payment for water service charges would be due and payable to the City’s finance department office 20 days after the billing date on the bill, not 15 days, which is now the case.
• Twenty-five days after the billing date. the City would add a late fee to the billing, and 42 days after the billing date, the City would mail a shut-off notice to a premise’s address and to the owner’s address on file with the City.
• The proposed ordinance would change the placement of physical door tags to mailed notification from the time of billing to shut off from 43 to 49 days.
• Commercial and Multi-family service class accounts will continue to receive at least a two-hour warning prior to service interruption.
Councilmembers had a few questions about the proposed ordinance, which will appear before them at their next meeting for final action.
“When we say ‘owner,’ that’s not necessarily the occupant, so the address to which you mail this, will it go to the occupant or the owner who may be in Phoenix. Ariz?” asked Councilman Rich Wagner.
“It goes to both,” responded Shelley Coleman, director of Finance for the City of Auburn. “It goes to the occupant, the address of the property… and to the owner of record.”
The owner of the property is responsible for paying, Coleman said, but if the City has a form on file that allows it to bill the tenant, it will do that. The City, however, will bill the owner any time the tenant is delinquent, Coleman said.
“Increasing the time period to allow for mail delivery, is that the reason 20 to 25 days, and the shutoff from 43 to 49 days, is that to accommodate the US mail?” asked Councilwoman Largo Wales.
“Yes, and state law,” Coleman answered.
