Town Flushes Out Water Bill Delinquents

Nine months after he first announced the town's plans to chase down payments on overdue water bills, Mayor Joseph Polisena announced this week that several customers had their water service stopped for failure to pay.

"By them not paying their water bills, that means that everyone else who does pay their water bill has to pay for their water," Polisena explained during a press conference at on Monday.

After starting the collections program in September, the town collected an estimated $139,000 in back payments within about two weeks.

Under the program, rate payers who signed up for a payment plan could avoid shutoffs — but on Monday, Polisena said many people who agreed to payment terms didn't adhere to them.

"We let them sign an agreement that said they would put 'x' amount of money down and make monthly payments," Polisena explained. "Unfortunately, many of them did not make payments after that, so we're shutting their water off."

Trish Schiavitti, the town's water and sewer department senior clerk, said she even had one case where the customer "looked me in the eye and told me that [she wouldn't pay] — I said, 'You had an agreement and you didn't honor it,' and she said, 'I never intended to.'"

Within 24 hours of Polisena's announcement on Monday, the town had collected some $39,600 on past-due water bills, the mayor's administrative assistant, Janet Whiteley, reported in an email message.

By this afternoon, the amount collected stood at just less than $45,000, with about a dozen accounts remaining shut off at that point.

Past articles on this topic:

• , Oct. 11, 2011
  
• , Sept. 26, 2011