Councilmen on water appeals board: Member can ignore city's legal advice
ATLANTA - A months-long investigation by the FOX 5 I-Team has explored outrageous water bills with phantom origins. It has also caught the attention of the Atlanta Utilities Committee after the city's appeals board refused to adjust the bills. Two Atlanta city council members have strong words for what they consider a broken process.
"It's a system that doesn't often work well," Councilman Howard Shook of District 7 said.
The six-term representative and vice chair of the Atlanta Utilities Committee has pushed for more consumer advocacy when customers appeal their bills to an appointed board.
"I have advocated for years that we need a customer Bill of Rights," Shook said.
The new Atlanta Utilities Committee Chair, Antonio Lewis, doesn't always see the Appeals Board working independently of the city, which, according to their landing page, is their marching order: "The Water and Sewer Appeals Board is an independent board made up of citizens appointed by the Atlanta City Council."
"We have to look at the protocol of the Board," the southeast Atlanta rep said.
And here's why. In two cases brought before the Board last year, both got extremely high water bills. East Lake retiree Jeffrey Williams told the FOX 5 I-Team that in 2022 his two-person household, according to his Atlanta Department of Watershed Management bill, used 3.8 years of water in just four months, coming to $12,087.06. Mr. Williams hired a plumber who said he didn't have a leak, but he did have a broken city water meter.
Here's another case. Before a home was even built, Revive Construction Group owned a vacant lot. Before breaking ground, the team requested a water meter, which was, at the time, tied into nothing. No pipes. No house. It sat capped on the sidewalk. But that empty lot, if you look at the water bill, was really thirsty. More than a million gallons of water, which no one could find or see, was registered as being used. That bill was for nearly $30,000.
In both cases, they appealed those charges and lost.
EMPTY LOT RECEIVES NEARLY $30,000 WATER BILL, OWNER ORDERED TO PAY BY APPEALS BOARD
But the Buckhead city council member saw both cases differently than the board. Shook said, when asked about the empty lot with no water line, which said on paper it used the equivalent of 100 large swimming pools of water, he wouldn't expect the consumer to pay that bill.
"Because I would believe that there was another explanation that would've been uncovered yet," he said.
And it seems Board member Rosanne Maltese had misgivings too. She asks in this exchange with Spencer Peck, an attorney representing the city, how to proceed.
Maltese: Does the code, the city code, allow the board to look at any kind of extenuating situations and address them? Or, extenuating circumstances that might impact the situation?
Peck: What I understand you to be asking, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you believe that this situation isn't covered by the existing provisions of the code, and you are looking for authority to grant an adjustment?
Maltese: That would be the plan.
Peck: Then my answer has to be no. The Board is bound by the terms of the code and must comply.
But what code? When we asked the city of Atlanta to explain, we were sent a link to a large catalog of city codes. We asked again what specifically he was referring to. Neither Peck nor the city would tell us.
ATLANTA WATER AND SEWER APPEALS BOARD DENIES MOST BILL ADJUSTMENTS
But Shook does have strong feelings about this.
"If she and a majority of the committee had voted yes, it would have been a different outcome," he said, adding that board members do not have to take the advice of an attorney representing the city of Atlanta.
Lewis said these results simply "don't make sense."
"This has to be a training issue. You look at the training that our board members are getting," he said.
ATLANTA UTILITIES COMMITTEE CHAIRS SIDE WITH CONSUMERS OVER WATER APPEALS BOARD
Well, Williams, the man who had a broken city water meter, is taking DWM to court. He has a March court date. We will be there. In the case of the empty lot, they are still considering their legal options.