Water dues still at issue

Kyle Austin’s 12-plex apartment building was the center of the Moorcroft Council’s attention again last week with the property owner’s disregard of the most recent 30-day shut off notice and his subsequent reference to possible lawsuits over loss of revenue if the town proceeds.

The situation is that not all the units are recognized by the existing meters and the landlord, though paid by each tenant, has not fulfilled the connection of the remaining apartments, subsequently not paying on the water dues for every rental using the utility.

Moorcroft installed meters for each of the 12 units months ago, foregoing tap fees with the understanding that Austin would hook each apartment into a meter; six have been put in use with no apparent progress to connect the other six. This is creating a costly problem, according to Public Works Director Cory Allison.

“We’ve put gravel up there four times; these are drive-over meters, but we need to cement around them, we can’t do it until he ties in and they’re breaking them by driving on them. The other day, we had another one broke…we need to get something moving on this. All those meters are right where they park, they have to drive right over them,” he said.

Councilman Bob Stewart had recently driven by “to check on progress” and he found one meter pit lid partially off and garbage within the space “on top of the valve”. He suggested barricading the meters, but the group recognized the inevitability of tenants simply moving the markers and parking there anyway.

With frustration apparent throughout the governing body, Councilman Austin Smith said, “I feel like we put ourselves on the line 60 days ago, when we sent a 30-day notice that we were going to shut it off, then we were nice and didn’t. He came in and gave us the runaround again and then he throws the word ‘lawyer’ at us and now we’re backing down again…I guess my worry is now we’re going to drag this out another year – he’s going to beat us around for another year. We’ve probably got $30,000 out in installing meters in labor and time.”

Mayor Ben Glenn disagreed: “I don’t feel like we’re backing down. I think our position is still held firm. He is 100% current on everything and we’re still creating revenue off of it, that’s why I don’t believe we’re backing down. I think we’re staying on the path we’ve been on and this is purely another move, just one more step down the right path and to rush this step might not be that great.”

After further discussion on the options available through the town’s ordinance, Town Attorney Pat Carpenter shared his more cautious view regarding what the municipal law states about apartment buildings tapping into the town’s main waterline, stating, “The ambiguity, in my mind, is the language that says ‘every property or premises has a meter’. We don’t talk about multi-family in the ordinance and that’s my concern.”

“The current ordinance takes us right up to the ledge,” Carpenter continued, “But we don’t get over the top and to be bullet proof with that, especially knowing that this is a potential claim for lost rental profits; we really should be bullet proof and your ordinance just does not get us there because we’re missing that sentence.”

Councilwoman Heidi Humpal asked about removing the unused meters and Allison assured her that the job could be done easily, “We can shut the meter off and pull it out in five minutes.”

At this time, the removal of the six unused meters seems to be the best solution until the ordinance is changed; however, a number of council members spoke to the former agreement being voided by this decision. Petersen advised, “We can’t afford to have those meters broke…If you pull the meters out and it does come to where he has to hook up because the ordinance can change over time, then he’d have to pay the $3000 per meter tap fee.”

Stewart concurred, “If we pull it out, yes, we charge him…Yes, he has to pay for it.”

“If we’re going to keep kicking this around and not do anything with it,” Humpal opined, “Let’s just go get our meters…We pull them out and leave it how it was, he stays in compliance and doing good and you get your 30-day notice to shut your water off and you shut his water off. If we’re going to keep dinking around with this part of the deal, I say we get our meters back. Get them out and do our thing. He does what he’s getting away with doing and if he doesn’t pay his water bill, it gets shut off.”

With the adjustment of the verbiage in this ordinance, which will say in part, “every parcel, every unit, every lot” so all rental units within town limits will be obligated, within a determined period of time, to meter every individual trailer house and apartment.

This eventuality has been recognized for some time, however, with the problem of the 12-plex, that eventuality and what it means to other property owners who rent mobile homes and/or apartments on one meter has moved to center stage.

Humpal, who owns and operates a trailer park northwest of Riley Avenue, said, “I don’t want to be punished for what Lyle Austin has done. I think that’s ridiculous for me or other paying landlords in town to be punished and have to go through that process…There are other options before we go that route. I think there is a way easier way to do that than to have our town spend maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on meters. Like I presented before I was on [the council], there are commercial rates for one meter people.”

The attorney assured Humpal, I’m just giving you a draft of what I’ve seen work, but no matter what we do, the whole ordinance needs to be improved.”

Council made no decisions at this time.