Powerless
Some utility users take advantage of city

A City of Gallup collection field representative shuts of the water to a duplex in Mesa Avenue on June 2. The city has been aggressively shutting off past dues accounts in an effort to keep up with collections. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Independent correspondent

GALLUP — Over the years, officials in the city clerk’s office have learned two things about people in Gallup.

First, no one likes to have their utilities cut off. And second, many people each year take advantage of the city to get out of paying their utility bills as long as possible.

In this issue, we have a list of those people in Gallup who had their utilities cut off in the last few months. The list includes almost 400 names who have a grand total of $227,931.75 in debts to the city when their utilities were cut off. The list is from Nov. 1 through April 30.

It should be noted that this list is relatively short because the city, by state law, can not cut off residential users in the winter because of the possibility that it be hazardous to their health. For that reason, cutoffs between Nov. 15 and March 15 are very limited.

But once spring comes around, city crews are out there in force shutting people off.

It doesn’t happen on March 15, but City Clerk Alfred Abeita said city officials monitor the weather after March 15 and when they believe that warm weather has arrived, utility crews start going out and cutting off utilities of people who haven’t paid for two months or longer.

But not everyone on the cutoff list in today’s paper actually had their utilities cut off.

Among the names on the list are the Gallup Indian Medical Center and the U.S. Post Office.

Abeita said neither had their electricity cut off but utility workers did go by and give them the cutoff notice in the hopes it would encourage them to get current. But historically, the city has had a lot of problems in getting government entities to stay current because of the amount of red tape involved in getting any bill paid on time.

Another thing people will notice is that a lot of people have bills of $800 or more, and since the average utility bill is less than $150 a month, this would indicate that the bill may be four or five months delinquent.

This brings up a sore subject in the city clerk’s office — the way a lot of people in Gallup take advantage of the system.

People know that there will be no cutoffs during the winter, said Brenda Romero, who oversees the cutoff process, so they simply don’t pay during the winter. When spring comes, she said, people start coming in and saying they can’t pay the $800 or more that they owe and they set up a payment plan that allows them to get caught up by November when they stop paying again.

There’s also another policy that allows people to run up huge bills with the city. That’s the policy that prevents the city from turning off anyone’s utility bill who has a medical condition that would jeopardize their life if the utilities are cut off.

Some people have tried to take advantage of that policy, said Abeita, by coming in with a doctor’s statement which says that so and so is in such bad health that their life would be endangered if the utilities were cut off.

City officials have learned to look carefully at those medical letters because there have been cases where the person has greatly exaggerated their medical condition to keep their utilities from being shut off. For example, having arthritis is not enough to get one on that list.

Abeita has a problem, however, with that list and that’s the fact that some people on the list think that it means they never ever have to pay their utility bill. That’s not the case, said Abeita. If someone on the list has the financial ability to pay, the city expects them to pay, and Abeita said some changes may have to be done to the policy to make this happen.

There are some cases where, for one reason or another, people who usually are good in paying can’t. For example, the breadwinner in the family may have lost their job or there may have been a major illness.

In those types of cases, he said, city officials try to help the family out by referring them to a state organization or a local charitable group that can help them catch up with their bills.

Most of those on the list were given a notice that the city would be cutting off their utilities in four days but there were times when a utility worker was sent to a neighborhood to cut off utilities and was given the directive to cut off one or more of their neighbors who were also behind.

And in at least one case recently, someone with a past due utility bill got the warning first-hand.

On Tuesday, Joe Kolb, owner and publisher of The Gallup Herald, appeared before the City Council to talk about the need to make improvements in the city’s skateboard park.

When he was finished, Gallup Mayor Harry Mendoza pointed out that a recent issue of the Herald had a cover story about a unscientific poll the paper had taken which came to the conclusion that 56 percent of the people surveyed had less than a favorable view of the Mendoza’s job performance.

Mendoza, who has never been a big fan of the Herald or of the Independent, used the occasion to point out that Kolb’s utility bill was past due and told him that “if it wasn’t paid up by Friday, he would have his utilities shut off.”

Kolb expressed displeasure at the announcement, pointing out that that he didn’t think that the City Council meeting was the proper venue to make that kind of announcement.
Mendoza had no comment.