Defiance Tackling Delinquent Water Bills

Defi­ance City Coun­cil on Mon­day night, dis­cussed the prob­lem of delin­quent water bills.

The Cres­cent News reports that fol­low­ing more than 90 min­utes of delib­er­a­tion, the three-member util­i­ties com­mit­tee agreed to con­sider the issue fur­ther at council’s reg­u­lar ses­sion set for July 22.

Con­cerns are float­ing around about how the city might cut the $44,000 in delin­quent water bills that renters have rung up so far just this year alone. Accord­ing to City offi­cials, they can bill land­lords for the delin­quent amount, but there is some reluc­tance in City Hall to do that, and even more resis­tance from the land­lords.

While some noted that water and sewer rev­enues amount to about $6.6 mil­lion in Defi­ance so far this year, $44,000 is just 0.7 per­cent of the total. While most agreed that as a per­cent­age, that’s pretty good, but in terms of a dol­lar amount it’s a lot.

One idea that was brought up included rais­ing the $75 water deposit to $150 or $200 as well as increas­ing the water recon­nec­tion fee from $20 to $50.