Mr. President, members of Council, Mr. Mayor, Department Heads, Clerk of Council. good evening. I'm Tony Zubek, 16689 Timberline Drive, Strongsville, Ohio. I've come this evening to spend a few moments in making an observation on Ordinance 2006-239, which, in Caucus this evening, the Chair of the committee has announced you will pass, suspend and pass this evening and bring into law. A couple of questions that I would ask you to perhaps discuss during the discussion period prior to the vote, one relates to the billing periods.

I might preface this by saying in my four year association in participating as an active citizen in government and attending several of Mr. Gallagher's Finance Committee meetings, those that I'm allowed to attend, I don't remember a discussion of the dastardly number of people not paying their sewer bills or the cash flow being a disaster or the funds being absconded somewhere. The only thing I remember hearing is that Mr. Batke on a couple of occasions announced somewhere down the road the City is going to face some issue because it's going to need to be repaired. So, a clarification of some bits of information, if you feel it appropriate this evening.

The sewer charges, this is in 1048.05 Billing Periods; "The sewer charges levied at the rates established in Section 1048.03 shall be billed by the City of Cleveland as its billing agent, quarterly so as to coincide as closely as possible and practicable to the dates when the City of Strongsville renders its quarterly water bills..."

In addition to 1048.05, based on the darkness of the new lettering is that, "the Utility Department of the City of Cleveland is hereby authorized to DISCONTINUE WATER SERVICE FOR FAILURE TO PAY CHARGES WHERE DUE AND PAYABLE."

My question to the Council and the Administration is, IS THIS DONE UNDER THIS NEW ORDINANCE TO FORCE A SPEEDING OF THE CASH FLOW FOR THE PAYMENT OF SEWER BILLS since eventually they're going to be collected anyway?

But now we have, if this is passed, the ominous right, and we can blame the City of Cleveland because we gave them the authority, to shut off the water for the slow payment of the sewer bill.

There is a remedy for nonpayment related to this and apparently one has approximately ninety days after the bill is rendered to pay it. However, in talking to some citizens, if you have a dispute about your water bill, and my understanding is at any given quarter there are a minimum of two hundred, possibly as many as six hundred people, who dispute just their water bill, not their sewer bill. It can take up to, in the instance of the neighbor across the street, it took approximately 17 weeks before the issue was resolved. And, at this point, under the old ordinance, he could come to the City of Strongsville and say, you know, "this is what's happening, please hold up on the issue of the sewer payment" and the nice lady said, "We can do that", and did and the issues were resolved, not necessarily totally in his favor, but he didn't find himself in disrepute at that point.

So that question is raised. in the contract that we're going to sign with the City of Cleveland, which has to be signed very quickly so that they can start billing us in January, it says, "CLEVELAND AGREES TO PERFORM THE BILLING FOR FOUR DOLLARS PER BILL RENDERED". Now, they render a bill every quarter. I don't know how many bills are rendered in the City, but if----I live in development of 600 homes, if they render a bill , 600 homes, that's $2,400.00. If they do it four times a year and it's a rendered bill, then it's $9,600.00. If a rendered bill us just once a year, then it would make sense that maybe we're saving a lot of money, but if that's not the case, is it expedentially more or less expensive for us to use the City of Cleveland?

I'm for regional use wherever we can, but the question of rendered became an issue. And are they billing me or are they billing this little development $2,400.00 for each quarter.

Mr. Haseley---You want to sum it up, Tony? You've got about three seconds.

Tony Zubek---Thank you. I summed it up.

 Mr. Haseley: Thank you. I won't ask for a response to any of this, but I think we can answer some of this stuff at the---at City Hall, if not all of it. By the way, the City water department has that authority now to shut you off. I think the next one is just a sign-in to show that you are here. Dale Serne? It's not necessary for you to say anything , as you've already heard, we're going to suspend and adopt this.

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OBSERVATION:

As of this date, 1/09/2007, no member of the Administration or Council has identified a City Ordinance passed prior to the 7 to 0 passage of Ordiance 2006-239 that gave anyone the authority to shut off your water for the non (immediate) payment of your sewer bill.

Chalk another one up to "I gotch ya"