The
Minonk City Council spent most of their regular Monday night meeting
discussing how to collect unpaid water bills and reduce the number of
unpaid bills. City Administrator Trent Smith gave a copy of the
ordinance covering water bills from the cities of Bloomington, Normal,
and LeRoy.
Smith noted that the City of Minonk code is
essentially the same as Bloomington’s code and everyone else for that
matter. He said over the years, the City of Minonk has been lax in
enforcing Clause C which states that the water service should be shut
of every time there is an unpaid delinquency.
Mayor Bill Koos
reminded the council that the city's ordinance that we have now has
worked well for over 20 years and also works for other
communities. However, Alderman Sean Cunningham said that he still
believes that the city needs to hire a collection agency to aid the
city and the landlord in collecting unpaid water bills. The
landlord would pay the city for the unpaid bill and the city would turn
over the amount to a collection agency which would charge a 40%
collection fee. The city would then reimburse the landlord mimus
the fee after a collection is made.
Alderman Brian
Petersen said that he thought that the only change to the ordinance was
to increase the deposit from $75.00 to $150.00.
Alderman
Petersen said that the landlord would still be responsible for the
water bills, but what we would do would facilitate to help them get
their losses back. They have already paid us and in return we would be
lending a hand.
Mayor Koos said that is what he wants to be
clear on is that we are collecting the unpaid portion of the water bill
before a new renter moves in and Alderman Petersen said that is
correct.
City Administrator Trent Smith said that would not be
the case according to our existing code. With our existing code someone
else can move in, but if the old renter does not pay the bill within 20
days they are given notice that if the unpaid bill is not paid, there
is an additional 10% penalty accessed. Then the owner can pay it before
hand. They have another 20 days to pay it, and if it is not paid then,
it does not matter who is in there, the water gets shut off.
Aldermen
Petersen and Cunningham said that it still comes down to the property
owner and the renter is not going to stay very long if the water is
shut off.
City Administrator Smith said that the city has been skipping Clause C in the ordinance.
Alderman
Petersen asked why are we skipping it to which Smith responded that he
does not know why and it has been done that way for years.
Mayor Koos said that he did not think that you should touch this ordinance at all.
Mayor Koos said that he was unaware of Clause C and based on the
discussion so far did not think it needed to be changed. He said we
should enforce Clause C and let the ordinance stand as is and also
enforce Clauses A and B of the present ordinance. He said if someone
does not pay a water bill, I do not think we need to deal with
deposits.
City Collector Bobbie Evans said that that she was not
trained to collect outstanding water bills from the landlord. She said
there would not be those outstanding balances if the city collected
from the landlords.
Mayor Koos said that he felt that there was
enough information here to bring to the Council to make sure that the
public is informed as to what we did find out and what other
municipalities are doing. Koos reported that he has received more phone
calls and had more conversations about this ordinance than he has of
anything else. He state that we will continue on with this and get
something drafted for Council approval.
City Council comments
Alderman
Fortner said that he would like to mark the passing of Tom Ketchmark as
he did not realize how much he had done for the City of Minonk in his
life.
Mayor' comments
Mayor Koos said that he would like to
concur with Alderman Fortner on the passing of Tom Ketchmark and said
that he did serve the City at several different levels and anyone who
has that kind of public service has a very special character. It is
good that the community has people like Mr. Ketchmark to do public
service.