07/06/2009 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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June 25, 2009 Rick DeGardner Public Services Director City of Lino Lakes Dear Mr. DeGardner: RECEIVED JUN 2 0 2009 CITY OF LINO LAKES We are writing to dispute our water bill. We will refer to everyone by name to avoid confusion. The property in question is at 6383 Hartford Circle, homeowners, John and Mersini Parker. Background: The homeowners received notice April 21, 2009 that the water meter did not work properly and although "the automated reporting system" was "functioning properly, the water meter itself" had "failed ". The homeowners now owe retro money according to the city. The homeowners strongly disagree and two major points will be made. Mrs. Parker called and talked to Mr. DeGardner and he in turn mailed her a colored spreadsheet listing bills and showing the city's calculations. The spreadsheet however did not include two bills in the calculations - the first two bills the homeowners received. On the spread sheet Mr. DeGardner wrote, "call me to discuss ", and Mr. Parker called Mr. DeGardner to discuss the full situation and was then told to write a letter. We are happy to do so. We believe this letter needs to be seen by others at the city. We have listed the individuals and sent them a copy. Point #1: The homeowners moved into their home at the above address on May 1, 2003. In the fall of 2003 we received a high water bill from the city. Mrs. Parker called the water department and let them know something may be wrong and that her bill was very high. Mrs. Parker requested an audit of her meter and that request was refused by the city. She further asked for an audit and was told to go to her basement and check the meter herself. She told the lady at the city that she didn't know where the meter was and that someone at the city really needed to come check. She was refused again. Several months later the homeowners received another very high water bill. The homeowners paid the bills although we were very unhappy with the lack of service and attention from the city. At the same time the homeowners were in the middle of a big battle with the city engineers. We will go off topic just a minute only because Mr Degardner questioned Mrs. Parker as to why she didn't pursue the water problem. The answer is because we were fighting with the city engineer to try and get him to do his job. That job was to redo the city maps to show that our home was NOT in a flood zone. Our mortgage company was threatening to charge us $4,000 per year in flood insurance because of these incorrect city maps. It took a year and a half of red tape -- phone calls, faxes, explaining and pleading with the city engineer. We got nowhere!!! We were ignored. We had already paid hundreds of dollars for flood insurance we didn't need and we were faced with the $4,000 amount to kick in. Our mortgage company could only do so much for us - they needed the maps updated to