Phil Reisman: Yonkers water bill 'beyond the pale'

It's gotten to be an annoying cliche: Yonkers, the City of Hills, where nothing is on the level. Sometimes you wonder if the saying should be retired.

But then you hear yet another story about the city's confounding water bills — and you reflexively reach for the old, sardonic phrase with all its unpleasant implications.

This one is a head-scratching doozy.

"It's beyond the pale," said Earle Marsh.

Marsh is treasurer of the 42-unit Monterrey Condominium complex. Suffice to say, he's mad as hell. He's also a very meticulous record keeper.

The story begins last April, when lohud's Tax Watch blog reported that Monterrey was cited on a city lien list as owing $529,634.96 in real estate taxes for the year 2012. Looking into it, Monterrey's attorney was told that the condo didn't owe back taxes but instead owed a total of $125,000 in unpaid water bills. (The original $529,634.96 figure and how it came to be remains a mystery to Marsh.)

Marsh looked into the $125,000 water bill. How could it be that high? This is a question that has vexed Yonkers residents and businesses for nearly a generation, thanks to budget cuts that essentially reduced the process to an inaccurate, haphazard mess.

According to Marsh, the condo complex consists of two 21-unit buildings — each of which has its own water meters. In 2002, its management company, Anker Management, moved its headquarters and sent a forwarding address to the Yonkers water department.

The problem was that the water department changed the address for only one of Monterrey's two meters. That meant that one water bill was reaching the management company while the other bill was sent back to the city marked "undeliverable."

Marsh acknowledged that Monterrey shared some responsibility for the mishap, but the city, he insisted, was the main culprit.

"They made the mistake," he said. "We compounded it because we didn't catch it — then they made it worse by doing nothing about it for 13 years."

Marsh embarked on a surreal journey into Yonkers bureaucracy — a trip that took five months.

Paying the bill was never the issue. It was a question of how much. And Marsh could never trust the city's numbers, which seemed to wildly fluctuate from one day to the next and without explanation.

After studying bills and water rate tables, Marsh discovered that Monterrey actually owed $56,143.18, out of which about $22,000 was interest and penalties. He thought that was a good starting point, and that he could negotiate the final figure down to about $44,000 after meeting the city halfway on the extra charges.

That's when somebody from the water department walked into a meeting in June and said that Monterrey actually owed a jaw-dropping $811,000. Even the city's lawyers were stunned.

The negotiations continued through the summer. Finally, in August, it looked as if a settlement could be reached for $65,000 — still too much by Marsh's reckoning.

An official from the finance department said wait — the real amount owed was $117,000 because of an additional $52,000 in interest and penalties.

According to Marsh, that meeting was adjourned so that the numbers could be rechecked. The next day city officials came back and said Monterrey didn't owe $117,000. Nope. It owed $200,000.

"At that point, I went nuts," Marsh said. "I went absolutely nuts."

It didn't end there. In October, the city revised its settlement amount again — this time to $85,000.

Marsh clung to $44,000 as a fair amount.

In the end, Monterrey's board agreed to pay $65,000 in one lump sum, to avoid interest and penalties. Marsh said this put a serious dent in the condo complex's reserve fund and thought it unjust.

He told me he was only speaking for himself, as a unit owner.

"I am not speaking for the board because the board just wanted this to be over," he said. "And I felt a certain responsibility that people should know what was going on."

Marsh's dissatisfaction extends beyond the water department. He's angry with just about everybody at City Hall for prolonging the issue with "absurd and outrageous numbers" and for never accepting an ounce of responsibility.

Corporation Counsel Mike Curti, whose office was at the center of the controversy, did not return my phone call.

Last year the city began installing state-of-the-art water meters in homes and businesses — an expensive project which is about 70 percent complete.

Eddie Ayala, a spokesman for Mayor Mike Spano, said the new meters should eliminate problems like that experienced by Monterrey.

"We all know that the water meters have been a big problem in Yonkers for many, many years," he said. "It's exactly why Mayor Spano led the charge to overhaul the system."

This probably comes as small comfort to Marsh, who said, "I don't like to get screwed over."

Twitter: @philreisman