Letter sent by Mike to the Daytona Beach News Journal
LETTER TO THE EDITOR of the Daytona Beach News Journal
This unabashedly critical and uncomplimentary letter is in response to your editorial titled “Port Orange seeks sensible solutions” and to your 12/12/2015 article titled “Port Orange retiree’s $3,000+ water bill prompts city to explore options.” Both articles do an adequate job of presenting the facts surrounding Port Orange’s attempts to collect more than $3,000 from Monica Jones, a partially disabled widow living on Social Security, but neither one presents the full story. The News-Journal is guilty of that insidious journalistic sin of omission.
Ms Jones originally appeared before City Council on October 6, 2015 asking for relief from an extraordinarily high water bill caused by a leaking pipe. The City’s idea of relief was to have her sign an agreement on November 13 under which she would make payments of $50.59 per month for five years and to place a lien on her single-wide mobile home to guarantee payment. It was only after Ted Noftall pointed out the callous nature of these arrangements during the Citizen Participation section of the December 1 City Council meeting that any further action was taken.
As your previous coverage of these events points out, City Manager Jake Johansson is now looking in to other ways to help Ms Jones with her bill. What your previous coverage of these events fails to point out is that Mr Johansson’s charitable nature only appeared after citizen scrutiny of the facts. Before this scrutiny everyone at City Hall was perfectly content to bind a 74-year-old widow to five years of payments under threat of taking her home.
Some people find this a deplorable situation even without public embarrassment. Ted Noftall has set up an account in Monica Jones’ name to accept donations towards her water bill. People interested in donating can stop by any branch of TD Bank and simply say they want to add money to the “Monica Jones Water Relief Fund.” The bank will give you a receipt.
Thanks to all who have donated so far.
[vsw id=”142779439″ source=”vimeo” width=”600″ height=”400″ autoplay=”no”]
[vsw id=”148778018″ source=”vimeo” width=”600″ height=”400″ autoplay=”no”]
When those bozos on the city council talk about making the city whole dont they realise that the citizens are the city? Im a citizen and I dont want my city whole by charging a disabled widow living on social security 3 thousand dollars for her water. Some one on this blog called Jake a snake but snakes arent as low as him.
Like PO Oldtimer I also do not want to see the City made whole on the back of a 74 year old disabled widows with a dollar to her name until the next social security check arrives. Not when hundreds of thousands are wasted on useless consultant studies and hundred of thousands more are going unpaid at the Golf Course compliments of Council.
So unless Council is proud of what happened in this instance and in a dozen other equally distasteful instances then tell us what went wrong here ?
Speak up Council – and especially
Speak up councilman Burnett who wants to be elected Mayor,
Did the News Journal publish it ?
Jake has been pushing this façade Port Orange Pride campaign. Based upon his actions towards this widow and all the tape painting and window dressing superficial shit in his weekly report you think a Port Orange Shame campaign would be more apropos for him. Stop the bullshit campaign Jake, relieve the widow, open the read file back up, and quit the I.C.M.A. shit!
Why is Wayne Clark no longer there?
Wayne took a planning job for the city of Asheville.
I would really like to know how many cities in Volusia County have the technology city wide to notify residents of a line break on the homeowner side of the meter like this. Mike or Ted, can you answer that for us? Also, this can’t be the first time in the history of Port Orange that something like this has happened. How has it been handled in the past? Shouldn’t her insurance handle this? I’m all for giving people a hand up when they need it, but not for a policy of bailing everyone out for problems they are or should be responsible for. Don’t open a can of worms please. Our government at all levels is already involved too damn much and injects themselves in our lives enough! Now we want the local government to pay to monitor how much water flows through a persons meter on an hourly basis with an alert system? Sounds like Big Brother too me. Are we going to install meters to make sure they don’t accidentally leave the lights on in a shed or the spare room? Can the City stop by on Christmas to make sure I don’t overcook my ham?
Other Cities have policies for forgiveness of unusually high water bills where evidence of pipe breakage and subsequent repair is submitted. But not Port Orange.
Port Orange goes right for the financial jugular unless you are Mayor Green and need a $13,000 water bill forgiven which Council did with out even batting an eye.
The insurance suggestion is a complete red herring in that insurance pays for damage to a structure where costs can be predicted in advance and not for water running out of a broken pipe often times underground.
You are tad late with your Big Brother concerns as Council already spent your money, unwisely I believe, to give the utilities department the big brother technology to monitor individual water consumption on a real time basis. The only thing lacking is the call back notification of unusually high consumption.
When was the Mayor given $13 k worth of forgiveness ? Is this documented ?
If so, the precedent has been made.
In reply Concerned citizen
Posted here Feb. 24, 2014
Free Reclaimed Water For Mayor Green, To Wit: $8,422.70
incoming / February 24, 2014
Mayor’s Water bill canceled by City Manager ….
Are Retroactive Adjustments Authorized By Law?
.
Well I’ll be dammed !!!!
Shame on you guys at city hall
It’s always been the case that if it occurs from the meter In toward the home, it’s the homeowner’s problem.
” It’s the homeowners problem ” attitude works until it doesn’t work.
So what would your solution be in a case where a 74 year old disabled widow with just over $1 dollar to her name until her next social security ck arrives just cannot pay the bill ??
Would you cut the water off ?
Would you perfect the lien and force the owner to vacate ?
Come on Concerned don’t be shy. Tell us what you would do ?
Jake (possibly with Ted’s influence) did the right thing.
Rebecca Lee what would you do?
Knows all the Dirt
This happened o my 90 year old mother who is now gone. Her water bill had always been about $20 per month. One day there was a notice on her door that her water was going to be shut off.
No one notified her that there was a problem…probably a leak.When she passed away a short time later we had to pay the bill or have a lien put on the property.
Sadly this is the case with heartless bureaucracies unless your name happens to be Allen Green. They need to stop playing as Christians with the preacher blessing them before council meeting and at least be honest and admit they are not faithful. Also, they need to cut the shit out about Port Orange being special by choice and not by chance. If this were true and they walked what they talked, they would find a way to provide this poor disabled widow with relief instead of a multimillionaire like Green receiving $8,000 plus relief from his colleagues on the DIAS. Happy holidays Ebineezer Green! Humbugh!
Cut it off – nope. Under the present circumstances, they likely did the proper thing.
How do you differentiate between the haves and have nots when making an adjustment ? Who makes the decision ? The council does and they have been consistent and uniform in their decisions.
Now this deal with the Mayor getting an adjustment ? You folks ought to take that and run with it. That is ridiculous and sly.
Concern citizen: Ted did take off and run with it in 2014 and it went no where as it always does with these shady findings.
Guess it was t pushed hard enough. Maybe it’s time to bring it up again due to the current relevance.
” They likely did the right thing ” Who is the ‘they’ and what is ‘the right thing’ you are referencing?
Because if it is Sleaze-ball Green and Shaky Jake all they did was take a lien on her trailer and put her in an agreement she could not afford.
You seem impressed with that tid-bit of sleaze regarding Green.. Well did you know that
Green had a 3″ reclaimed water line run down Jackson street and his construction business masquerading as a scam farm to collect $ 4010,000 in agricultural exemptions every year was the only customer on that line
or that
Green recently has his reclaimed water connection cut and capped before someone realized he was spraying that un-safe un-approved effluent on agricultural products ?
So the next time you hear Sleazy Green announce that snow birds can’t turn off garbage collection when they are gone for the summer because someone has to pay ask him who is paying for that 3″ reclaimed water line that was run down Jackson Street to service just him ?
If you knew half of the sleaze that goes on at City Hall perhaps you wouldn’t be as quick to condemn Ted and the activists as you are. He is the only one working for any of us that I can see.
Soooo, if you are aware of all this graft, why don’t you confront the Mayor at the next Council meeting ?
Is he immune from all this ? Looks to be !
So if your grandchild gets ahold of your iPhone and downloads a bunch of games and ringtones, will AT&T waive the bill because you are a widow? Better yet, will they spread the charges across all of the other paying AT&T customers?
If someone housewatching for your watches pay-per-view movies all week long, will Brighthouse waive the bill because your a widow? Better yet, will the spread the charges cross all of the other paying Brighthouse customers?
The answer is no and no.
Anon: Those are amenities. Water is a necessity. You probably live on a golf course and don’t understand the difference.
I can reasonably be expected to be aware of who is using my iPhone or who is watching the Playboy channel at my firehouse (oops–house). I can reasonably be expected to be aware of my oven or my air conditioner running 24/7.
Can I reasonably be expected to be aware of a water leak under my mobile home? I don’t think so.
Had Monica Jones’ bill been due to water spouting out somewhere in plain view, no one would be arguing in her favor.
This letter to the editor of the N-J was never published !