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Wallingford Fire District No. 1 MINUTES OF THE BOARD
OF
ABATEMENT MEETING Kurt J. Brown called the meeting to order at Visitors: Jason
Coltey, Chris Dinnan, Jennifer Pascal and Victor J. Segale K. Brown introduced the board of abatement hearing for
Jennifer Pascal and the resident in question V. Segale introduced himself as J. Pascal’s attorney.
He outlined the bill that was sent to J. Pascal reflecting the dates from
April 2006 – September 2006. He
went on to say that some renovations had been done to the property. J. Coltey was sworn in by K. Brown to give his honest and
true testimony with regards to Mr. Segale went on to say that he doesn’t think that
anyone exactly knows what happened, the only thing that he’s able to think of
is that obviously there’s a clear error somewhere, it’s either in the data
collection, the information collected, the entry in the computer or the storage
in the computer, retrieving out of the computer system that printed the bill.
The past bills were looked at, and usages that were used.
The house was identified as being occupied sometime during the time in
question. Chris Rabtoy said after this bill he had spoken to Ms. Pascal. He offered to meet her at the property to go in to see they could find what was going on and why there was so much water used. The conversation quickly deteriorated. The bill that had gone out in February had reflected October – December the usage went down to 6,000 gallons. No body did anything, nobody touched the meter, from the fire district. But something drastically changed between that bill and the next one. The following bill the usage was 68,000 gallons and next was 11,000 gallons. One running toilet in a 24 hour period at 60 psi can generate over 3,500 gallons. It doesn’t take a major malfunction to run through a half a million gallons of water. Staff doubled checked the readings they were identified as
high to make sure that we were transcribing everything accurately. But,
mysteriously on the very next bill the usage had dropped.
As far he is concerned he thinks that something was changed in the
building or had changed after the bill was generated and he doesn’t know what
that was. Mr. Segale asked if there
was a possibility that one of the meters had been altered or tampered with,
sabotaged. Water meters can slow
down, but can’t speed up. Part of
our ordinance for water are options that a customer can request a meter to be
changed, if the meter comes back plus 1 or 2 %, then the customer would inquire
the cost of a licensed plumber, meter and the mailing of the meter to the
manufacturer. From his
prospective he doesn’t know what happened, but the water went through the
meter. K. Brown wanted to clarify when the building was occupied
by a tenant. Ms. Pascal responded
with yes and she was having some renovations done.
She said that she never had any water problems or leaks.
The contractors were working there with the water turned off installing
fixtures. So there wasn’t anyone
in there doing anything. K. Brown
asked if it was possible that the house was empty a couple of months without
anyone working there. Ms. Pascal
said, well they were working in there. How
often have you gone to the house in the last six months?
I don’t know, once a month maybe. It’s
a very bizarre water bill. K. Brown asked as far as the Prudential Committee goes the
rule for the district is the ownership of the proof of a bad meter is up to the
resident. C. Rabtoy said no, if the
property owner thinks that the meter is reading incorrectly, they have the
option of requesting us to have that meter tested.
The fire district hires a licensed plumber to remove the meter and put in
a new meter and the old meter is sent out for testing.
The process is if the meter comes back within plus or minus 2% of
accuracy, then the homeowner will have to pay the bill for the plumber removing
and installing the new meter. If
something comes back that is wrong on the meter, obviously we will adjust it
that way. K. Brown asked if that had been done.
The answer was no, nobody requested.
Mr. Segale wanted to know how a person would know, when would they find
out that all of a sudden they had gone from one reading to another.
Ms. Pascal said that typically a bill was distributed every 6 months.
She only new in November that there was a problem with water and normally
she would think that after 3 months someone would say something doesn’t seem
right. C. Rabtoy said that this is part of the reason that we are
now at a quarterly billing cycle. Because
problems like this can be caught much earlier and a lot less expensive for the
property owner. R. Smith sited an ordinance reading “taxes in which there
is manifest error and unusual burden on persons to pay their taxes”. That
seems to be the standard for a board of abatement.
Whether there is the issue of a faulty reading and could be proved one
way or the other, that’s not the standard of under the abatement hearing.
It’s the question if it’s totally discretionary as whether a person
can abate their taxes due to a manifest error.
That’s what needs to be decided on. C. Dinnan said that he would suggest to try to come up with
a reasonable number, based on past usage look at this as an aberration.
He just can’t imagine sitting there and expecting Ms. Pascal to pay
$7,000. That’s the bottom line for
him. R. Rabtoy that the water went somewhere and puts and takes
extra resources from the sewer plant, from the well pumping the water from the
reservoir. He doesn’t think that it should be written off.
C. Dinnan said that maybe there’s a compromise with going with an
average or going with something higher than an average. K. Brown said that now that we have discussed the facts and
with everything we know, he wanted to know if someone would entertain a motion
to bring this due process to an end. R. Rabtoy made the motion not to abate the bill and it
stand as it is. K. Brown seconded it
and said that they would go into discussion.
The discussion noted above is basically the discussion that needed to be
had. R. Regula said that she had never remembers a reading like
that before. She can not agree that
it went through that much gallonage. She
said that it should have been caught. When
she was in the office, we would go out and if we say it immediately, we
addressed it then to contact the people. As
for the billing, I agree with Mr. Segale that we should be putting the beginning
usage and then ending, so what people know what their readings are.
I have heard that from other people.
She can agree that Ms. Pascal’s property could not use that much with
nobody there. C. Rabtoy withdrew his motion and said let someone else
make a motion. C. Dinnan made the motion to move the $7,000 to become
$1,000 and to abate the remaining $6,000. R.
Regula Seconded the motion. R. Smith
waived his penalty fee and the fire district to receive the appropriate interest
on $1,000 which is $120. No further discussion.
Motion so carried. (YES 3, NO 1). K. Brown made the motion that the meeting be adjourned. R.
Regula seconded the motion. Motion
so carried. (YES 4, NO 0). Meeting adjourned at Respectfully Submitted: Stephanie P. Biagini Clerk/Treasurer Date Approved:10/10/07 |
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