Monday, June 16, 2008

Are You Ready for Your Water Bill Increase?

Just when everyone's budgets are already spread thin, our public servants are itching to hit us with another increase. If you read the article in Friday's Gazette (beware, you'll have to scroll down to find it*), you'll see how they're rationalizing it. What bothers me the most about it is that they have over $100,000 owed to them by people who's service hasn't been cut off! I don't know about you guys, but the last time I was late (by just a few days) they didn't have a problem shutting my water off. I would think that the 'sewage only' customers would be even more inclined to pay on time. If you have raw sewage backing up into your home, it's time to pay the darn bill.

But wait! What they don't tell you is that there is no way for them to shut off the sewer service. Once a home is connected to the sewer, it's always on. That's why they aren't disconnecting those people! There is no real incentive for those patrons to ever pay their bill if there is no chance of having the service disconnected.

Ahhh... the smell of free sewage service in the morning. There's nothing else like it.

*Note to the Gazette-Virginian: Please, please, please either make your articles have static URL's, or at least change the archive pages so that readers can click a link to auto scroll to the article they're interested in.

2 comments:

Halifax Conservative said...

Why don't they file an action against them, and have a judge find a way to get the money, and then make them pay for that too.

Halifax.News said...

I'm not sure how government agencies go about doing that, but if it works like it does for businesses then it's almost worthless.

First you file a warrant in debt and pay the fees, then you go to court. Most likely you will get judgment against the deadbeat, but they aren't forced to pay. People only pay when and if they need to clear up their credit report.