City, sanitation district seek to end wrangling

City, sanitation district seek to end wrangling

May 17, 2001

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

The Cortez Sanitation District board expressed willingness Tuesday night to work with the city of Cortez to find a solution other than disconnection for the problem of delinquent accounts.

"If you think we took some heat over this $500 fee, wait till we exercise the first $4,000 one," commented board member Bob Diederich. "I’m not sure that we don’t have to take a serious look at all of this."

The district came under fire last month because of a case in which it cut and plugged the sewer line at a local residence with an outstanding balance of $56.28 on its sewer bill. The man at the home had been disabled by a stroke and brain surgery, and his wife eventually sold her wedding rings to pay the $500 fee to have the sewer line reconnected. District officials said the woman could have requested a hearing to plead for leniency but did not.

The district has a policy of physically severing sewer lines for long-delinquent accounts, a practice that is allowed but not required under state law. The $500 fee is to pay the cost of cutting and then reconnecting the line. If a customer is disconnected twice within five years, the fee for reconnection is $4,000.

Board President Stan Pierce said he and Cortez Mayor Joe Keck are choosing a committee with some members of both the sanitation board and the city council to work out an intergovernmental agreement under which the city could cut off water service to homes or businesses that hadn’t paid their sewer bills.

Without such an agreement, the city may be on shaky legal ground if it cuts off water to customers who have paid their city water bill but not their sewer bill, said city public-works director Bruce Smart, who had come to talk to the board. He said he would be "hesitant" to have such a policy enacted.

"It would be easier if we could flip a switch like everybody else can," said board member Sam Jarvis.

Having a lien placed against a delinquent property is another possibility, the board said. But member Jim Bridgewater said that lien after lien could be applied "and you’re still providing a service to them and you’re not getting paid for it." Furthermore, he said, under such a system the district might not be able to collect 100 percent of what it was owed.

There are 30 residential customers and four commercial customers on the district’s most recent disconnect lists, said district manager Bill Smith.

All of the businesses and some 73 percent of the residential customers are "repeat offenders," he said.

The district has a total of approximately 3,500 accounts, according to Smith, of which some 480 are commercial.

Bridgewater said 15 customers on the disconnect list are a year behind in their payments, and asked whether any had requested a hearing to plead extenuating circumstances. Smith said one had, but the hearing has not been scheduled.

Earlier Tuesday, the board heard a request from Jim Kreutzer, developer of the 100-acre Southern Bluffs Sub-division south of Cortez, for permission to put T-joints rather than sewer taps in the subdivision.

Sewer taps, which are installed only by the sanitation district, would mean cutting into the asphalt in front of every home in the 245-lot, manufactured-housing development as the lots were sold, Kreutzer complained.

"I intend to build a lot of homes in a very short period of time," he said. "Then every 50 feet I’ve got to cut in the asphalt and put a sewer line in and cover it back up. It’s going to look like hell."

Smith, however, said T-joints, or stubs, are often located incorrectly and are more likely to allow roots to grow into the lines. They "add to the roughness coefficient in the pipes," he said, by putting a T in every 50 feet.

In addition, the board said, because they are done by the developer and hook the lots up to the sewer system before they are sold, the district then has no way to ensure that customers actually pay the tap fee to the sanitation district.

The last time the district allowed "stub-outs," Bridge-water said, was on Center Street, "and in two years the city had issued three building permits and three of the houses had no taps (paid for)."

Smart disagreed, saying there was just one house on Center Street where the owners hooked up to the sewer without paying a fee.

But Bridgewater said several times in the past four years the district had "stubbed stuff out, and we come back and there’s people living in it."

"I don’t think you guys are ever going to create a perfect world," countered Kreutzer. He said he would put a provision in his covenants requiring lot-buyers to pay the tap fee.

Kreutzer said the sanitation district needed to be more willing to work with customers.

"There’s going to have to be a daily process to work hand-in-hand with people," he said. "Why can’t the board sit down with the city council and work things out?" He said the city had been "more than willing to do anything to help me get done, but I’ve had nothing but trouble from the sanitation district for the past three months."

The board then voted to allow Kreutzer to use the T-joints in his project.