Wednesday, August 04, 2010
City officials in Rochester, New York, have a problem turning off the tap. Instead of shutting off water supplies to the city’s numerous vacant homes, the local government has continued to read the meters and compile “astonishing” water bills for owners, whether they can be located or not. On one street, water bills rose 25 times higher than the average, resulting in millions of dollars in unpaid accounts that the city has given up trying to collect.
The city has justified the practice of not shutting off water to vacant properties by claiming that it allows them to add the cost of the unpaid water bills to property tax bills. If these are also not paid, the taxes become a lien which can then be sold to a collection agency.
However, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the city has finally begun to change its ways, by cutting off water to more than 1,300 properties, including 876 vacant, privately owned homes. Another 500 shutoffs are pending.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Vacant Homes Plague City's Water System (by David Andreatta, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)
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