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5-13-24 City of Watertown City Council Work Session
Watertown City CouncilThursday, May 15, 2025
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should show you guys and they press it into it. I didn't bring my phone. That's what That's what That's what I sell. That's what I do. Actually, it was at the place I said to protect staff and and time and time that you know what I mean maybe different but you know what I mean but it is what ultimately if you don't pay something long enough you're going to lose that service and including water you know what I mean so you know it's like if you don't pay for your car eventually they're going to come take it away or you don't pay for your house you know what I mean it's the same with water you don't pay for your water eventually they're sitting You can cut it off. This is a great plan. I think it's great. I don't know how we I don't know if we want to like promote it though. That's what I'm You know what I mean? I think it's just going to be something. Yeah. But it actually it actually is something that I think we should be proud of. You know what I mean? Because again that this I think this really protects there's going to be several people that that are downtrodden if you will that their water won't be shut off. And I I think that's actually a really big thing. You know what I mean? I think the community should would all recognize that. think that that's a a really positive thing. I mean, I don't know. Again, I but again, I don't know if we want I mean, we don't want to say, "Hey, from now on, we're not shutting people off. Everyone quits paying it. Everyone quits paying it." Yeah. Because then the county is going to say, "Uh, something's going on." Water. We need to charge them a fee because we're doing their work. Well, and that's the thing. Can we charge interest or anything on or it's just what we do? So, once we assess it, there is interest attached to it. So, Okay. Cuz I'm like, they're just getting free moneyakes. What about is there a turn there? So there'll be no turn on fee though. That that'll save the C. See right there. That's another thing we can pitch to them is you know I mean not that we would pitch it to them but that's another thing that is a good point is that you know they would also not have to pay this turn on fee which is also brutal when you're right trying to just pay a back water bill. You know we don't have to shut off. We don't have to turn back on. We don't have to uh play cat-and- mouse games with people when they park their cars over their curb stops, you know, and then you have to go check it 10 times to see when when it's finally moved. I thought of that part. That's I never thought about that. People get pretty clever when when it comes down to it. Mine you couldn't do that too, but yeah. Sorry. I never thought of that. I guess you could on on there the part where the how do you want to promote? Do you really want to sit there and promote it or just as it as this person you know when we is in November when we do this we just say hey the city is taking a much friendly approach to to these resolving these we're not shutting people's water off anymore we've you know what I mean I think at that time we just say it and you know what I mean I don't think we want to we have to have something made right now though so if the people that are already behind on their water bill if they go all summer along and we don't say them until November. No, they'll be getting late notices and stuff all along. So, I mean, they're getting late notices. They're just it's not it's not going to get assessed or it wouldn't be shut off until November either. You know what I mean? And you still get um you still get a penalty. Um so, I mean, you know, there a late fee every month. Um so, what if Yeah, someone for three months or four months. So then yeah, they'll they'll get a late fee every month that it's What is the late fee? What is the late fee? Bill and I went on vacation once and told our teenager to go on a water softener and it ran and it was in the cycle and it ran continuously for 10 days and we came back and got a water bill that was like thousands of dollars. And I called the city and said, "Yep, that was us." You know, this was 20 plus years ago. And they said, "You know what? They changed my I made it into the commercial rate because we use so much water or whatever. So, they changed something and they said, "We won't charge you any late fees as long as you make payments towards the excess amount." So, they didn't charge me any late fees and I got it all paid off, which was nice, but I was making an effort to pay it. So, yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. And that's what I was saying. We have done a lot of those kind of deals, too. If someone comes in with a solid payment plan, like, hey, I can pay you now, I can pay the rest in two weeks or a month or whatever, I I think we have kept their water on. So then Dan, do we are will you then be making creating a resolution then for us for the next council meeting or for another council meeting or just the way our code reads it it really is just we can just change it. It's just if you guys direct staff to do it. Okay. Then um it actually the code reads as if this is really the primary process that's supposed to be followed. Oh. And then but it it states then that it you know nothing you know forbids the city from also doing a shut off if they feel like that's so the way it reads right now actually I would I would recommend just keeping it as is because it still gives us the option of um we just use this we just use this as the primary route from now on and those other instead of the other way. Yep. Shutting someone's water off does get their attention though. Yeah, I know. We found that out. Yes. Maybe in a bad way. Yep. Yes. You know, some people get that could be the trigger. So, you know, and I Yeah, and I brought that up right away. I was like, you know, we could just assess it. I think Dan said that. Yeah, we definitely could too when we were, you know, when this guy when issue came up. We got other issues too on top of that. So, Oh, no. There is, you know, that and just turning his water off on top of what he already had was probably just enough to push him over there. You know, there's a lot of people that just I mean, they hate people that they hate city people, they hate government, they and they just, you know what I mean? Yep. I'm one of them. I'm just kidding. Yeah, the shut off is the the most effective route if you just want to get people to pay and um but it's it's expensive for cities in terms of the time that is involved in it. Um, and so there's a there's a cost. And I think honestly with with the issues going on in today's world, nobody, you know, nobody from staff even wants to go out and shut these off. No, not nowadays. You know, it's just I mean, none of us would. I know. I don't think any of us would want to go out there and probably would, but I'd have the guy sitting in his window going, "What are you doing with my water out there?" You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, it it's true though, too. like I would be doing you would be that's what I was going to say that that's what you would be doing this other case though this that one gentleman we're talking about he did get assistance though didn't he did he he did it completely got