Not really. You just pay whatever it takes to turn the water back on, and then you subtract that amount from next month's rent.

Justin: I think the problem is that "whatever it takes" involves paying the entire complex's water bill.

"You just pay whatever it takes to turn the water back on"

You want to pay for a 50-unit complex with one water meter? Why doesn't PWB just put a lien against the property like any other debt?

Randy is really looking ot maximize profit at PWB isn't he?

Not that this ever happened to me, but the Water Bureau is the first to cut off service when you don't pay your bill. As soon as it is 30 days past due, they give you a 24 hour notice that the water will be shut off. At 8 am the next morning a service order goes out for the water to be terminated at the meter and locked. It then takes another 24 hour cycle after you have paid in full to get it turned back on.

Suppose your landlord spends a couple of months each winter in Mexico or Palm Springs and doesn't provide for the water bill to be paid. On a 10 unit building the bi-monthly bill will be in the ball park of $600. Most larger complexes have a manager or management company who look after these things so it will be in the small units where tenants will be affected.

"This is a 72 hour shut off notice. The Portland Water Bureau suggests you find some new digs in that time"

I found it interesting how during last nights on-air report K-12 kept showing pics of Pearl District properties.

What, does somebody have a list of the non-pay offenders and chosen to not tell us pedestrians?

I was waiting for the part that says:

"To pay for enforcement of this new policy all water users will experience an 11% rate increase effective yesterday."

Don't forget that the "utility fee" scheme, as authorized by the legislature, allows for the cut off of water if the entire panoply of stuff that is lumped into your utility fee is not paid up.

I can't seem to find the relevant sam adams' Safe and Sound Streets blog post where I vented at length. But you could read this post for some historical reference.

Or this from Jeff Cogan.

It is not a tax if they choose to call it a fee. And if they further call it a "utility fee" then your water fee-for-service (as a discrete service) can be cut off. It does seem to be a wonderful enforcement mechanism, one that no private judgment creditor could ever dream of obtaining from a Safe and Sane Judge. If the city does not include the water cut-off enforcement mechanism how else could they collect a "fee" for bike paths and the like?

Justin might also want to check the tenant-landlord laws too. It is not at all a given that you can simply deduct repairs or costs like water bills from "next month's rent" without some allowance or agreement to do so from your landlord.

Of course you could probably argue your point - and win - in court in an eviction case, but....

There is one other alternative. Go to Harbor Freight and purchase a 36” pair of bolt cutters, about thirty bucks. Cut the lock off and turn the water back on. You can get the turn on/off tool there too.

My bad. You guys are right, I didn't read the article close enough. Still though, I would just set up a payment plan with the water company and then start deducting the money from the rent.

Jack,

I thought I would take a stab at expalaining our rationale for the change in approach.

Yesterday, I authorized a change in policy that results in water shut-offs to multi-family account owners.

Why?

We have for decades been reluctant to turn off the water service to a building where we assume that the tenants and renters are living up to their rental agreement and paying their rent on time.

Unfortunately, our reluctance to turn off water in these situations has lead to a number of landlords and property managers simply deciding not to pay their water/sewer bill because they have figured out that there are no consequences if they ignore the bill. I had a property manager tell me last summer that he always paid the water bill last or not at all if money was tight because he knew we wouldn’t do anything about it. Our customer service staff has heard similar comments from property owners and managers for years.

We initiated this policy change because we have more than 600 multi-family account owners who owe anywhere from $100 to $70,000 in water/sewer bills. In fact, the largest five of these debtors owe more than $200,000 combined. That is a lot of money and we think that’s pretty unfair to tenants/occupants and other rate payers who are paying for what they use and paying on time.

As an example, today we notified a 12-unit condominium project that we intend to shut off their water April 1 because they owe more than $9,000 for service. No payment has been received from the Homeowner’s Association since October 2008, despite receiving a monthly bill, a monthly reminder notice and a monthly “Urgent” notice. In the meantime, since the last payment was received the owners/tenants of this condo complex have used over 300,000 gallons of water that they haven’t paid for.

Why not put a lien on these folks? We can’t. Under Oregon law, if we have the ability to shut service off, we cannot place a lien on the property. Last year, we took a bill to the legislature asking for a change in the law that would allow us to place liens on property as another tool to avoid shutting off “innocent” victims, but the legislature was unwilling to consider that action since we had not demonstrated that shutting service off would not resolve the delinquencies.

Isn’t this theft? Can’t you call the police? Can’t you sue? It certainly feels like theft, but this is considered a non-payment of a debt owed. In fact, we asked the District Attorney’s Office to press charges and they declined, again instructing us to use the shut-off process.

We have, however, sued several our debtors, won judgments and still not received payment. It’s very frustrating.

Is this fair? Our general billing and collections procedure allows nearly 2 months (56 days) and 3 reminder notices before we actually will shut service off on the 57th day since the bill was received. This new policy extends that policy for multi-family accounts for an additional 28 days. The policy serves notice not only to the account owner, but also to tenants or occupants.

In order to mitigate the impact to tenants/occupants, we plan to temporarily hook up our water station, WES, should a multi-family property lose water service. Tenants/occupants will be able to get water for drinking, cooking, etc. from WES, while we work with the account owner to make payment arrangements and get service restored.

We will also be letting tenants know what rights they have under the law when the landlord fails to provide or pay for basic utility service.

The bottom line is that these people are essentially squatting on Portland’s public water delivery system and not one citizen of this city should be okay with that. Delivering clean water costs money and we should all insist that everyone pay for what they use to ensure that the Portland Water Bureau can continue to deliver clean, cold, cheap and constant drinking water to more than 800,000 Oregonians.

Thanks for the opportunity to add to the discussion.

David Shaff, Administrator
Portland Water Bureau

Hey Dave, don't double our water bills!

Mr Shaff, sorry to burden you further, but could you discover time for a few questions about PWB billing of other City bureaus for water & sewerage?

1) Are bureaus billed individually by bureau or by separate meters? For example, is Parks billed for all of its water usage in one bill or by, for instance, individual parks?

2) Are bureaus ever in arrears on their water/sewerage bills? If so, has a bureau ever been shut off?

3) Have bureaus undertaken specific measures to conserve their water usage? If so, could you provide some examples?

Thank you for your attention.

Gardiner Menefree

One day Fireman Randy is going to piss of the wrong individual with his asinine antics....

Gardiner,

No problem – I had to talk to some of my folks to make sure I could give you accurate responses.

1. Generally we bill by property. For instance there are multiple bureaus in the Portland Building and City Hall, but there is just one master meter for the domestic water service at each property and each one of those has an “account” that is the responsibility of the Bureau of General Services. Parks facilities have an account that is associated with each meter servicing the property although an idividual property might conceivably have more than one meter serving that property (whether it is a City facility, a commercial property or a multi-family unit that has multiple services and meters).

The same applies to all bureaus. Each fire or police station has a metered service that is billed on a monthly or quarterly basis to the Fire Bureau, Police Bureau, etc.

2. No, we don’t let any bureaus get “behind” because we have Inter-Agency accounts that we draft from. It’s like setting up an account for auto-pay with us. We send you a bill and you have authorized us to debit your account. We do that with all the bureaus – and therefore have never had to shut any of them off.

3. Yes, it’s in their interest to conserve and be as wise in their water use as they can since they get charged the exact same amount as any other retail consumer. I don’t have details on bureau-specific efforts or initiatives but I know that Parks as an example has worked hard over the past several years to upgrade their irrigation systems and analyze steps they can take to reduce their consumption. Parks is our second largest customer by the way. They used 238,574,600 gallons of water in FY 2008-09.

We have a program called BIG (Business Industry & Government) where we work with our large users and provide the technical assistance, detailed consumption histories and site assessment & water efficiency consultation. We do the same thing on a smaller scale for our individual residential customers and provide a lot of conservation info on our website.

David Shaff

(From the PWB site)
"...squatting on Portland’s public...."

Just as I commented a few weeks ago about the overwhelming majority of people at the Police Bureau who are decent, hardworking public servants who are trying to do their best and have no interest in feathering their own beds, I thank the majority of the staff of the Water Bureau. That is, those who are not cutting sweetheart consulting deals, setting us up for a takeover of our water system, allowing logging in the Bull Run watershed, and otherwise misusing their power and influence against the public interest.

And I'll admit I was wrong: I am now glad the City didn't take over PGE.

David,

Thanks for participating. I'm actually astonished by the attempt to share the Bureau's motivations in this matter.

While your statements are compelling and certainly indicative of a serious problem, I feel the actions of the Bureau are clearly and obviously going to penalize the wrong citizens with practical and monetary inconveniences and injuries. A method to penalize the offenders rather than secondary parties is clearly needed.

I am especially concerned whether the Bureau is making any effort to determine if disabled and/or elderly tenants are going to lose service under these policies before shutting off service? Leaving such people in a situation completely analogous to a third world country due to no legal or moral fault of their own is simply unconscionable and irresponsible. It's not exactly ideal for the healthy and mobile tenants, for that matter.

If the Bureau had not been complicit in the current arrangement "for decades" it would not be in this situation. The efforts should be focused on state policy changes to punish the actual criminals here. Apparently, they should have been focused on this decades ago. Any failures to date with regards to changes through Salem, simply indicate a need to strengthen your case or take another direction in the argument.

Perhaps this is simply a scheme to generate interest in the issue and allow a more open discussion to resolutions in Salem. While an unfortunate method of leading, I sincerely hope this is the case. However, the advertised policy seems to be simply another point of shame for the lack of honest, thoughtful, and fair leadership in the entire state government of Oregon, and particularly the city of Portland.

Please find a better path to deal with the issue. This is just not the right path to follow.

"I would just set up a payment plan with the water company and then start deducting the money from the rent."

Actually, you might do better complaining to the state that the landlord is not providing a livable environment once the water got turned off. It'd be a lot quicker.

As far as Mr Shaff, does he have any actual plans for the 18% bump last year tne future increases or are we just padding the just-in-case fund. Also, why doesn't he like to listen to PURB (I'll assume Randy is pulling his strings.

Here's an idea, Wise Randy Leonard ... why not shut off the water to the landlord's personal residence? Send the HIT Squad to his place?

The worst landlords are likely not foolish enough to live in the shadow of the Sam and Randy corruption convention. But great idea when possible.

What an evil policy! Why don't they save us all some time and have the HIT squad go around Portland to kill poor old ladies? That's what's going to happen as a result of this change of policy.

David Shaff gives short shrift to suing the scofflaw lessor sons of bitches. Specifically, he's confused about the bureau's ability to impose liens. Even if the bureau can't impose a lien for unpaid bills on its own, the bureau certainly can sue and then foreclose on any resulting judgment lien.

The bureau's reluctance to go to court makes me doubt that the delinquent charges are all legally enforceable obligations. It seems likely that a large part of each delinquent account is composed of unconcionable late fees, illegal interest, and inflated charges.

I took notice of your comment about the $200,000 owing in water bills, you said "That is a lot of money...". I agree, but....
what about the recent $20 Million Sam Adams wants to take out of the Water Bureau budget for bike boulevards and calling it water bureau mission enhancement? Now that's a lot of money as well as unscrupulous, and against the city charter.

Have you mentioned that to Sam and Randy?

Sorry, my comment and questions above are directed to David Schaff

I would like to thank Dave Shaff for explaining the bureau's decision. It seems that the bureau is in a position where there are no good options.

Cutting off the water service to the homes of the landlords would be a great idea, except:

1) the landlord lives in Vancouver.

Or,

2) the landlord is a corporation that rents a cheap office somewhere.

It does seem that the city needs to do a better job of lobbying the legislature to permit a different means of enforcing collections, such as a lien against the property.

I wonder how long this has been going on. Certainly, a lot of landlords are congenital weasels, but I'd bet a lot of them are just stupid. They bought property thinking they could recoup their investment by raising rents, but the economy won't let that happen, so they are so overleveraged that they can't keep up with their overhead.

the landlord lives in Vancouver.

Sounds better all the time...

Ah, maybe people should move immediately and why is this not a crime the landlord could be charged with?

There are plenty of landlords in Portland that operate ethically and honestly.

"Even if the bureau can't impose a lien for unpaid bills on its own, the bureau certainly can sue and then foreclose on any resulting judgment lien."

So your solution is for the water bureau to pay a bunch of legal fees to lawyers to get its past-due money?

Perhaps we can get John Kerry to help us:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030701058.html

I mean, if he'll get involved so that innocent parties can still watch their TeeVee during a dispute, maybe drinking water might be considered almost as valuable.

WS - The City probably already has its own army of attorneys in place for this task. If not, fire two consultants who don't actually contribute to the bottom line and hire ten lawyers to go after the scofflaw landlords.

All,

The condo association we began with brought in a cashier's check this morning for the full amount. The account is up to date for the first time in over a year.

My goal is not to turn any of these folks off, but to get them to change their behavior and pay for the service that they have used.

David Shaff, Administrator
Portland Water Bureau

Actually, Lee, the pockets that are being picked are Sewer's, not Water's, for the Bike plan.

All,

The condo association we began with brought in a cashier's check this morning for the full amount. The account is up to date for the first time in over a year.

My goal is not to turn any of these folks off, but to get them to change their behavior and pay for the service that they have used.

David Shaff, Administrator
Portland Water Bureau

Oh, I get it now, this is all an empty threat against poor old ladies.

Not unclever, sir, though I wouldn't want to explain it to the man on my day of reckoning.