The Press & Sun waters us down again

[Ed Arzouian]

STORY CHAT

 

Chemicals cost now $100,000 more so Ryan needs to raise $2,230,000, a TWO MILLION DOLLAR SURTPLUS every year. Does that makes sense to you because that's what they are trying to make us swallow.

 

Ed not allowed, here, "a frequent Ryan critic"...,I had asked the reporter below Friday why we need a 43% increase (actually 81% total from the time Ryan took office to what he proposes by August 2009, as the reporter told me, yes eighty-one percent from $1.65 to $2.99).

 

According to the latest figures we have, lawyer Ed Crumb of the East Side Neighborhood Assembly estimates the increase will bring in $1,400,000 PER YEAR, EVERY YEAR... (We figured this out at the American Legion meeting Thursday night that The Press & Sun-Bulletin refuses to report on though WBNG, NewsChannel 34 and Time Warner's News10Now all have covered it. That's PSB Exectuive Editor Calvin Stovall censoring your news again)

 

Go watch:

http://news10now.com/content/all_news/1144...te/Default.aspx

http://www.wbng.com/news/local/17890139.html

 

I am less conservative than Mr. Crumb and I think the increase could have a resulting surplus of $2,230,000 per year (two-million, two-hundred and thirty thousand dollars).

 

A SURPLUS OF TWO MILLION, TWO-HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND PER YEAR EVERY YEAR!!!!

 

 

So chemicals went up 300% as Mayor Matthew T. Ryan likes to complain but that only represents a $100,000 expense. $300,000 deficit plus $100,000 more expense for chemicals and even by Mr. Crumb's conservative estimate the result is a $1,000,000 (one million dollar) surplus EVERY YEAR. Do we need to replenish the fund all in one year? Do you pay off your mortgage in a year? How many millions does Ryan want to soak us for?

 

And consumption may not necessarily continue to drop. I know one user who will use about 2,000,000 (two million) gallons more next year.

 

There is no justification for such a large increase except to cover waste and mismanagement elsewhere. This is all just more taxes in disguise. The NYS Comptroller needs to step in here and sort this mess out..

 

And if Mayor Ryan wants to encourage larger consumption, another of his excuses, he could offer a commercial discount to volume users, usually those who consume over 2,000,000 per year. About half of all the water departments in NYS do that.

 

In this report I still see no mention of the money going from the County to the General Fund for water payments and not to Water Department where it is supposed to. I see nothing about the complicated explanation from Calvin Stovall who called me Friday to say the City of Binghamton General Funds fronts the amount of the delinquent payments to the water department and then the County pays the General Fund back instead of sending the money the Water Department. (Mr. Stovall told me I should look into that and get the proof. I suggested his NEWSpaper should do that!)

 

That sounds like a recipe for accounting disaster to me.

 

The Water Department is a cash cow milked by the City of Binghamton. The City charges about $700,000 to the Water Department in "drawdowns" for things like rent and computer charges. They charge the water department $5000 (five thousand) per year for the services of Corporate Counil Ken Franks (who doesn’t live in Binghamotn does he?). How much work does Franks do? I’ll bet the Water Department could find a far cheaper lawyer.

 

 

Come to our next meeting at City Chambers where we plan to put all these question directly to Mayor Ryan.

 

Who knows maybe the Press & Sun-Bulletin might cover that event. Maybe we will get lucky, Calvin Stovall has to take a day off sometime.

NEWS

 

Posted Saturday April 19, 2008 (and Sunday, April 20, 2008)

 

Binghamton may change the way it bills for water use

By Doug Schneider

Press & Sun-Bulletin

 

BINGHAMTON -- The way Binghamton residents pay water bills could change later this year, driven by factors ranging from the rising cost of delivering the water, to a seven-year low in the city's water fund, to the fact that residents and businesses simply are using less H2O.

 

Water-users could end up paying more to bolster items as significant as a capital projects budget, or as specialized as freeing a frozen water meter. Other changes could make life easier for consumers -- including on-line bill-paying and acceptance of partial payments.

 

In a third scenario, warning notices might be going out to tenants whose landlords aren't paying their water charges, while seriously delinquent water customers could find their service shut off.

 

"We have the opportunity to make some long-overdue changes," said Tarik Abdelazim, executive assistant to Mayor Matthew Ryan. Abdelazim called changes on the drawing board at city hall "a reform package ... that city council will embrace."

 

Reform is needed, judging from a Press & Sun-Bulletin review of years of city water-department data. The review found:

 

* The amount of water being used in the city fell by 13.5 percent from 2003 to 2007, reducing the amount of income generated by the water system. As that happened, water fund revenues fell short of budgeted projections by a total of $580,000 in 2005 and 2006, after having beaten projections by a combined $211,000 in 2002-04.

 

* The cost of providing water to the city's 14,000 customers has increased more than 12 percent in five years, to almost $6 million a year. That's in part because the cost of chemicals that feed the plant has jumped by more than half.

 

* The amount the city charges residents for water-related capital fees hasn't grown since 1986.

 

* Water delinquencies have more than doubled since 2001, shooting to their highest level this decade. Though the city eventually is reimbursed when it passes the delinquencies to the county for collection, delinquencies mean Binghamton goes without the use of hundreds of thousands of dollars for months, and county taxpayers make up any uncollected amounts.

 

The Press reviewed water-department finances after revealing this month that property-owners failed to pay a whopping $1.43 million in 2007 charges while the city's water fund -- which had a seven-figure balance three years earlier -- is $303,000 in the red. The $1.43 million, which includes water and sewer charges and a $100 penalty, has been added to the tax bills of the people who haven't paid.

 

Officials decided in March to hike water rates 30 percent beginning in August, and 10 percent in 2009, citing factors like rising costs and declining revenue. By law, however, bills reflecting that increase won't be mailed until December.

 

Bottom line: some of those bills won't be paid until 2009.

 

'Major impact'

 

City officials now are studying approaches communities including Endicott, Elmira and Ithaca use to operate their water systems, including what those municipalities charge customers for water, Comptroller John Cox said. An approach being studied, he said, is designed to reduce the time between the point the water is used and the customer receives his thrice-annual bill.

 

Instead of mailing everyone's bill at the same time, officials said, the city would bill a portion of its customers each month. For some property-owners, this would mean paying water charges at different times of the year. Officials hope the approach would provide a more-effective tool in projecting and collecting water revenues, since there won't be a lag of months between usage and payment.

 

"Changing the billing cycle," Abdelazim said, "can have a major impact on how we manage these funds." He said the administration expects to make recommendations to the city council in May that will include allowing bill-paying online, or via a city hall kiosk.

 

Property-owners like Bob Seidel could also find themselves paying more for certain services the water department provides, according to proposed changes that officials from the mayor's office and finance department outlined in a 90-minute interview with Press & Sun-Bulletin reporters last week. Currently, a customer is billed $10 when the city fixes a water meter that has frozen in the winter. The city's cost: $83.

 

"Anything that's going to get the revenue in the coffers sooner is a positive ... and that's everyone's issue, not just (Mayor) Matt Ryan's," said Seidel, a former city councilman who owns a South Side house and two rental properties. He also said it's not fair that the city doesn't shut off the water of delinquent apartment- and business-owners at a time when 90 percent of property-owners pay water bills on time.

 

"Somebody who lives in Vestal shouldn't be saddled with the bill of someone who lives in the city," Seidel said.

 

One possibility is a hike in the $12 capital fee included in every water bill to fund water-system-related improvements and borrowing. The charge had not been increased since August 1986.

 

"Any increase we'd recommend would not be dramatic," Ryan said Friday. But, he said, "we're going to look at anything and everything to make our water fund healthy."

 

In the water department, costs have been rising and revenues dropping for years.

 

The water fund balance has gone from $1.2 million in 2002 to minus $303,000 last year, as the city has taken increasing amounts out of the fund. In 2003 -- the middle of Richard A. Bucci's third term -- Binghamton's water operation took in $5.1 million, $230,000 less than it cost to run. Two years later, revenues fell and expenses grew again, widening the gap to $760,000.

 

The next year, Ryan's first in office, revenue projections missed their mark by almost $413,000. Meanwhile, the amount the city spent on chemicals grew more than $100,000. "That was a crisis year," said Cox.

 

Not everyone, though, is sold on the idea that the city needs to collect so much money to address the issue, or that such a move would promote growth.

 

Ed not allowed, a frequent Ryan critic, said a smaller rate hike would do the trick. Several upstate communities, he said, grant "volume discounts" to large commercial users of water to encourage business development.

 

"Sure transportation costs and other costs have gone up, but they haven't gone up that much," said not allowed, manager of compliance and special projects at Bates-Troy Inc., a Binghamton-based dry cleaning and health-care linen business. "There's no justification for (that) increase."

Turn off the taps?

 

By law, the city may discontinue service to a water customer who hasn't paid his bill in the 30-day period after the end of the month when the bill was due. The law was adopted in 1979, but indications are that it's rarely if ever used; Bucci last week couldn't recall the city invoking it during his administration.

 

In all, more than $8.7 million in delinquencies have been rolled into people's tax bills since 2000. The number of delinquents hasn't changed significantly, but the average unpaid bill has gone from $418 in 2000 to $959 today.

 

That fact frustrates many water-users.

 

"It's just bad business," said Kneeland Avenue resident Joe Leonard. "Collect on the bills, or turn off the water."

 

Currently, almost 1,500 water customers are delinquent to the extent that their 2007 balances were turned over to the county for collection via being added to property-tax bills. Two dozen owe more than $5,000. The county threatened this month that, unless the city gets more aggressive with collections, it would stop collections.

 

Ryan acknowledged that seven-figure delinquencies can be "a scary figure," but like other city officials is quick to point out that the county reimburses the city for delinquent water charges once the charges are transferred to tax bills (in two payments -- one in January and one in mid-year). Indeed, the city had to rely on the county to make it whole for $1.06 million in delinquent bills for 2006.

 

Abdelazim said the administration is considering shutting off what he calls "seriously delinquent customers" -- those who owe $5,000 or more. Ryan has said the administration will consider shut-offs.

 

Some city council members support shut-offs, and the city council might not wait for recommendations from the mayor's office. Teri Rennia, D-3rd District, last week filed paperwork that says she plans to propose an amendment that would end the process of rolling unpaid water bills onto property taxes.

 

Bucci, mayor for 12 years before Ryan took office in 2006, said the city should take a hard look at shutting off the water to businesses that don't pay. The city increased water rates seven times in Bucci's tenure, records show. Hikes ranged from 17 percent in 1998 to 8 percent in 2001.

 

"It's a difficult balancing act ---- everyone's going to approach it from a different philosophical perspective," he said. Water delinquents, he said, "have to be broken into different categories. With businesses, you can be more aggressive (in collections). They have an obligation to be current on their bills."

http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll...EWS01/804190348

 

STORY CHAT

[Guest Guest]

I can understand the eay RYAN and the Band Of Follies want things their way, so they can spend on more stupid things like Merry Harris's flower pots.

 

What I do not understand is if the money is coming from the COUNTY and going into the GENERAL FUND, why isn't the money being transferred from the GENERAL FUND to the WATER DEPARTMENT like it should be? I would think that this area needs to be looked into more because if RYAN told someone not to do the trnasfer, that is Mis -apropreation of funds !

 

 

 

[Guest Guest]

STORY CHAT

 

Chemicals cost now $100,000 instead of $33,000 so Ryan needs to raise $2,230,000, a TWO MILLION DOLLAR SURTPLUS every year. Does that makes sense to you because that's what they are trying to make us swallow.

 

Ed not allowed, here, "a frequent Ryan critic"...,I had asked the reporter below Friday why we need a 43% increase (actually 81% total from the time Ryan took office to what he proposes by August 2009, as the reporter told me, yes eighty-one percent from $1.65 to $2.99).

 

According to the latest figures we have, lawyer Ed Crumb of the East Side Neighborhood Assembly estimates the increase will bring in $1,400,000 PER YEAR, EVERY YEAR... (We figured this out at the American Legion meeting Thursday night that The Press & Sun-Bulletin refuses to report on though WBNG, NewsChannel 34 and Time Warner's News10Now all have covered it. That's PSB Exectuive Editor Calvin Stovall censoring your news again)

 

Go watch:

http://news10now.com/content/all_news/1144...te/Default.aspx

http://www.wbng.com/news/local/17890139.html

 

I am less conservative than Mr. Crumb and I think the increase could have a resulting surplus of $2,230,000 per year (two-million, two-hundred and thirty thousand dollars).

 

A SURPLUS OF TWO MILLION, TWO-HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND PER YEAR EVERY YEAR!!!!

 

 

So chemicals went up 300% as Mayor Matthew T. Ryan likes to complain but that only represents a $100,000 expense. $300,000 deficit plus $100,000 more expense for chemicals and even by M,. Crumb's conservative estimate the result is a $1,000,000 (one million dollar) surplus EVERY YEAR. Do we need to replenish the fund all in one year? Do you pay off your mortgage in a year? How many millions does Ryan want to soak us for?

 

And consumption may not necessarily continue to drop. I know one user who will use about 2,000,000 (two million) gallons more next year.

 

There is no justification for such a large increase except to cover waste and mismanagement elsewhere. This is all just more taxes in disguise. The NYS Comptroller needs to step in here and sort this mess out..

 

And if Mayor Ryan wants to encourage larger consumption, another of his excuses, he could offer a commercial discount to volume users, usually those who consume over 2,000,000 per year. About half of all the water departments in NYS do that.

 

In this report I still see no mention of the money going from the County to the General Fund for water payments and not to Water Department where it is supposed to. I see nothing about the complicated explanation from Calvin Stovall who called me Friday to say the City of Binghamton General Funds fronts the amount of the delinquent payments to the water department and then the County pays the General Fund back instead of sending the money the Water Department. (Mr. Stovall told me I should look into that and get the proof. I suggested his NEWSpaper should do that!)

 

That sounds like a recipe for accounting disaster to me.

 

The Water Department is a cash cow milked by the City of Binghamton. The City charges about $700,000 to the Water Department in "drawdowns" for things like rent and computer charges. They charge the water department $5000 (five thousand) per year for the services of Corporate Counil Ken Franks (who doesn’t live in Binghamotn does he?). How much work does Franks do? I’ll bet the Water Department could find a far cheaper lawyer.

 

 

Come to our next meeting at City Chambers where we plan to put all these question directly to Mayor Ryan.

 

Who knows maybe the Press & Sun-Bulletin might cover that event. Maybe we will get lucky, Calvin Stovall has to take a day off sometime.

NEWS

 

Posted Saturday April 19, 2008 (and Sunday, April 20, 2008)

 

Binghamton may change the way it bills for water use

By Doug Schneider

Press & Sun-Bulletin

 

BINGHAMTON -- The way Binghamton residents pay water bills could change later this year, driven by factors ranging from the rising cost of delivering the water, to a seven-year low in the city's water fund, to the fact that residents and businesses simply are using less H2O.

 

Water-users could end up paying more to bolster items as significant as a capital projects budget, or as specialized as freeing a frozen water meter. Other changes could make life easier for consumers -- including on-line bill-paying and acceptance of partial payments.

 

In a third scenario, warning notices might be going out to tenants whose landlords aren't paying their water charges, while seriously delinquent water customers could find their service shut off.

 

"We have the opportunity to make some long-overdue changes," said Tarik Abdelazim, executive assistant to Mayor Matthew Ryan. Abdelazim called changes on the drawing board at city hall "a reform package ... that city council will embrace."

 

Reform is needed, judging from a Press & Sun-Bulletin review of years of city water-department data. The review found:

 

* The amount of water being used in the city fell by 13.5 percent from 2003 to 2007, reducing the amount of income generated by the water system. As that happened, water fund revenues fell short of budgeted projections by a total of $580,000 in 2005 and 2006, after having beaten projections by a combined $211,000 in 2002-04.

 

* The cost of providing water to the city's 14,000 customers has increased more than 12 percent in five years, to almost $6 million a year. That's in part because the cost of chemicals that feed the plant has jumped by more than half.

 

* The amount the city charges residents for water-related capital fees hasn't grown since 1986.

 

* Water delinquencies have more than doubled since 2001, shooting to their highest level this decade. Though the city eventually is reimbursed when it passes the delinquencies to the county for collection, delinquencies mean Binghamton goes without the use of hundreds of thousands of dollars for months, and county taxpayers make up any uncollected amounts.

 

The Press reviewed water-department finances after revealing this month that property-owners failed to pay a whopping $1.43 million in 2007 charges while the city's water fund -- which had a seven-figure balance three years earlier -- is $303,000 in the red. The $1.43 million, which includes water and sewer charges and a $100 penalty, has been added to the tax bills of the people who haven't paid.

 

Officials decided in March to hike water rates 30 percent beginning in August, and 10 percent in 2009, citing factors like rising costs and declining revenue. By law, however, bills reflecting that increase won't be mailed until December.

 

Bottom line: some of those bills won't be paid until 2009.

 

'Major impact'

 

City officials now are studying approaches communities including Endicott, Elmira and Ithaca use to operate their water systems, including what those municipalities charge customers for water, Comptroller John Cox said. An approach being studied, he said, is designed to reduce the time between the point the water is used and the customer receives his thrice-annual bill.

 

Instead of mailing everyone's bill at the same time, officials said, the city would bill a portion of its customers each month. For some property-owners, this would mean paying water charges at different times of the year. Officials hope the approach would provide a more-effective tool in projecting and collecting water revenues, since there won't be a lag of months between usage and payment.

 

"Changing the billing cycle," Abdelazim said, "can have a major impact on how we manage these funds." He said the administration expects to make recommendations to the city council in May that will include allowing bill-paying online, or via a city hall kiosk.

 

Property-owners like Bob Seidel could also find themselves paying more for certain services the water department provides, according to proposed changes that officials from the mayor's office and finance department outlined in a 90-minute interview with Press & Sun-Bulletin reporters last week. Currently, a customer is billed $10 when the city fixes a water meter that has frozen in the winter. The city's cost: $83.

 

"Anything that's going to get the revenue in the coffers sooner is a positive ... and that's everyone's issue, not just (Mayor) Matt Ryan's," said Seidel, a former city councilman who owns a South Side house and two rental properties. He also said it's not fair that the city doesn't shut off the water of delinquent apartment- and business-owners at a time when 90 percent of property-owners pay water bills on time.

 

"Somebody who lives in Vestal shouldn't be saddled with the bill of someone who lives in the city," Seidel said.

 

One possibility is a hike in the $12 capital fee included in every water bill to fund water-system-related improvements and borrowing. The charge had not been increased since August 1986.

 

"Any increase we'd recommend would not be dramatic," Ryan said Friday. But, he said, "we're going to look at anything and everything to make our water fund healthy."

 

In the water department, costs have been rising and revenues dropping for years.

 

The water fund balance has gone from $1.2 million in 2002 to minus $303,000 last year, as the city has taken increasing amounts out of the fund. In 2003 -- the middle of Richard A. Bucci's third term -- Binghamton's water operation took in $5.1 million, $230,000 less than it cost to run. Two years later, revenues fell and expenses grew again, widening the gap to $760,000.

 

The next year, Ryan's first in office, revenue projections missed their mark by almost $413,000. Meanwhile, the amount the city spent on chemicals grew more than $100,000. "That was a crisis year," said Cox.

 

Not everyone, though, is sold on the idea that the city needs to collect so much money to address the issue, or that such a move would promote growth.

 

Ed not allowed, a frequent Ryan critic, said a smaller rate hike would do the trick. Several upstate communities, he said, grant "volume discounts" to large commercial users of water to encourage business development.

 

"Sure transportation costs and other costs have gone up, but they haven't gone up that much," said not allowed, manager of compliance and special projects at Bates-Troy Inc., a Binghamton-based dry cleaning and health-care linen business. "There's no justification for (that) increase."

Turn off the taps?

 

By law, the city may discontinue service to a water customer who hasn't paid his bill in the 30-day period after the end of the month when the bill was due. The law was adopted in 1979, but indications are that it's rarely if ever used; Bucci last week couldn't recall the city invoking it during his administration.

 

In all, more than $8.7 million in delinquencies have been rolled into people's tax bills since 2000. The number of delinquents hasn't changed significantly, but the average unpaid bill has gone from $418 in 2000 to $959 today.

 

That fact frustrates many water-users.

 

"It's just bad business," said Kneeland Avenue resident Joe Leonard. "Collect on the bills, or turn off the water."

 

Currently, almost 1,500 water customers are delinquent to the extent that their 2007 balances were turned over to the county for collection via being added to property-tax bills. Two dozen owe more than $5,000. The county threatened this month that, unless the city gets more aggressive with collections, it would stop collections.

 

Ryan acknowledged that seven-figure delinquencies can be "a scary figure," but like other city officials is quick to point out that the county reimburses the city for delinquent water charges once the charges are transferred to tax bills (in two payments -- one in January and one in mid-year). Indeed, the city had to rely on the county to make it whole for $1.06 million in delinquent bills for 2006.

 

Abdelazim said the administration is considering shutting off what he calls "seriously delinquent customers" -- those who owe $5,000 or more. Ryan has said the administration will consider shut-offs.

 

Some city council members support shut-offs, and the city council might not wait for recommendations from the mayor's office. Teri Rennia, D-3rd District, last week filed paperwork that says she plans to propose an amendment that would end the process of rolling unpaid water bills onto property taxes.

 

Bucci, mayor for 12 years before Ryan took office in 2006, said the city should take a hard look at shutting off the water to businesses that don't pay. The city increased water rates seven times in Bucci's tenure, records show. Hikes ranged from 17 percent in 1998 to 8 percent in 2001.

 

"It's a difficult balancing act ---- everyone's going to approach it from a different philosophical perspective," he said. Water delinquents, he said, "have to be broken into different categories. With businesses, you can be more aggressive (in collections). They have an obligation to be current on their bills."

http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll...EWS01/804190348

 

STORY CHAT

 

 

Give it up already. What is your obsession with matt ryan? are you secretly in love with him? No one cares about the stupid water bill. if you want to complain about something why not complain about the high gas prices and grocery bills. Take that to gwb

[Ed Arzouian]

Give it up already. What is your obsession with matt ryan? are you secretly in love with him? No one cares about the stupid water bill. if you want to complain about something why not complain about the high gas prices and grocery bills. Take that to gwb

 

 

Nobody cares about the "stupid water bill"

 

I think you will you are vey wrong about that.

 

Maybe if you water bill was $71,000 per year you would care more.

 

Maybe if you had a water bill at all you would care more.

[Guest Guest]

Nobody cares about the "stupid water bill"

 

I think you will you are vey wrong about that.

 

Maybe if you water bill was $71,000 per year you would care more.

 

Maybe if you had a water bill at all you would care more.

 

 

i do have a water bill and it's not that big of a deal. Just pay the bill and move on with your life.

[Ed Arzouian]

i do have a water bill and it's not that big of a deal. Just pay the bill and move on with your life.

 

What a ridiculous attitude.

 

An eighty-one percent increase in the water rates doesn't concern you?

 

Keep toking, man....

 

[Guest Guest]

What a ridiculous attitude.

 

An eighty-one percent increase in the water rates doesn't concern you?

 

Keep toking, man....

 

 

No, it doesn't concern me... what concerns me is your total obsession with this. what concerns me more is the high gas prices and the war in iraq, which goerge bush created.

[R.S.]

The way i see it.............its more money in there pockets. If they can get away with it they will until someone catch them

[Ed Arzouian]

I should have added it should be no surprise that as the water rates keeps increasing the consumption goes down. That is simple economics.

 

 

 

 

STORY CHAT

 

Chemicals cost now $100,000 more so Ryan needs to raise $2,230,000, a TWO MILLION DOLLAR SURTPLUS every year. Does that makes sense to you because that's what they are trying to make us swallow.

 

Most of the text here has been deleted as unneccessary when quoting your own post.

 

STORY CHAT

[Guest Guest]

I should have added it should be no surprise that as the water rates keeps increasing the consumption goes down. That is simple economics.

 

 

Don't add anything more!!!! No one cares about your personal agenda!!!!!!!!!!!

[tom]

Don't add anything more!!!! No one cares about your personal agenda!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You welfare people are completely wrong, there are a lot of us who care!!

[Guest Guest]

I can understand the eay RYAN and the Band Of Follies want things their way, so they can spend on more stupid things like Merry Harris's flower pots.

 

What I do not understand is if the money is coming from the COUNTY and going into the GENERAL FUND, why isn't the money being transferred from the GENERAL FUND to the WATER DEPARTMENT like it should be? I would think that this area needs to be looked into more because if RYAN told someone not to do the trnasfer, that is Mis -apropreation of funds !

 

 

 

 

 

@

[Guest Guest]

all good questions

[Guest Guest]

Ed not allowed, a frequent Ryan critic, said a smaller rate hike would do the trick. Several upstate communities, he said, grant "volume discounts" to large commercial users of water to encourage business development.

 

If your employer who is a large commercial user of water were to get one of these discounts for 'development' would they then pay on time??

 

 

@

[Guest Guest-Fred-*]

You should be in Union............they have about 10 million in surplus they are doing nothing with and raise our taxes. What a poor level of government and they want us to go in with them.Vote no on dissolving until we get some good people in there. The ones now are all bailing out they are so bad. One became a $52 thousand dollar employee and one is not running I heard and the other one is the worst yet and the leader. Get rid of him,he is arrogant and has no clue what he is doing. Look at him when he talks to you. He talks down to you llike he is something. I now heard that he might appoint Harry Lewis to help him win in November.

[Guest Guest]

[Guest Guest 1]

It seems that Ed's solution to this is for his employer to get a special lower rate, thus stiffing everyone else.

[Guest Guest]

It seems that Ed's solution to this is for his employer to get a special lower rate, thus stiffing everyone else.

 

 

 

 

That shouldn't surprise anyone.

[Ed Arzouian]

If your employer who is a large commercial user of water were to get one of these discounts for 'development' would they then pay on time??

 

 

@

 

 

I'm not employed by Kradro. I have nothing to do with that company.

 

Do your homework.

[Ed Arzouian]

It seems that Ed's solution to this is for his employer to get a special lower rate, thus stiffing everyone else.

 

First the City tells us they have to raise the rates because consumption has decreased.

 

If that is the case should they not encourage consumption by giving volume users discounts?

 

Isn't Binghamton supposed to be "Open for Business"? Aren't we supposed to be, "Showing the world we mean business? So what has the Ryan adminsitration ever really done for busienss?

 

Furthermore, John Cox, Binghamton City Comtroller said today in the PSB, he wants to look at the examles of Endicott and other towns.

 

Here is what Endicott does:

 

Minimum rate: $35, First tiered price: $1.21 per 100 cubic feet untis. Industrial users: $0.88, discounted for greater consumption. Compare that to Binghamton's $2.99.

 

Almost half of all water department in NYS discount for large volume users. This is nothing new. If you used 22,000,000 gallons of water per year you might like a discount too....

 

Let's hope Comptroller Cox is true too his word and adopt similar policies & pricing to other municipalities.

 

Let's see if Binghamton is really open for business or if it just a welfare haven.

 

[Guest Guest]

I'm not employed by Kradro. I have nothing to do with that company.

 

Do your homework.

 

 

 

 

Please.

 

A family run business?

[Ed Arzouian]

Please.

 

A family run business?

 

 

Again, I have nothing to do with that business, there are many Kradjians with many busineses. Few of them are involved with Kradro. Look into it. Don't spread lies.

 

Furthermore, all these companies below owe much more than Kradro why aren't you concerned about that? Do you have a vendetta against only one of 1500 businesses and people on the list?:

 

Tax Map ID Owner's name, as listed on water bill Amount owed

03-0018-050 Cohanim Realty Corp $66,099.68

04-0003-001 Linko Technology Center Inc $38,189.83

03-0003-063 Kra Sall Corporation $16,184.61

08-0002-090 Binghamton Associates LLC $16,072.64

10-0002-042 A B C Housing Dev Fund Co $15,831.77

02-0004-059 1388 LLC $14,463.38

08-0002-084 19 Chenango Street Inc $11,280.45

08-0001-027 Chang's Realty Corp $11,267.49

08-0002-200 Binghamton Associates LLC $10,236.39

11-0001-016 Belcher John C $8,923.24

03-0002-001 ETS Realty Corporation $8,869.46

09-0006-028 Greater Binghamton Dev., LLC $6,994.82

08-0001-031 139 Washington Street LLC $6,967.53

09-0003-009 218 Water Street LLC $6,878.98

08-0001-087 People of the State of NY/BU $6,871.40

09-0006-070 Metrocenter Assoc, LLC $6,220.76

[Guest William Collector]

Again, I have nothing to do with that business, there are many Kradjians with many busineses. Few of them are involved with Kradro. Look into it. Don't spread lies.

 

Furthermore, all these companies below owe much more than Kradro why aren't you concerned about that? Do you have a vendetta against only one of 1500 businesses and people on the list?:

 

Tax Map ID Owner's name, as listed on water bill Amount owed

03-0018-050 Cohanim Realty Corp $66,099.68

04-0003-001 Linko Technology Center Inc $38,189.83

03-0003-063 Kra Sall Corporation $16,184.61

08-0002-090 Binghamton Associates LLC $16,072.64

10-0002-042 A B C Housing Dev Fund Co $15,831.77

02-0004-059 1388 LLC $14,463.38

08-0002-084 19 Chenango Street Inc $11,280.45

08-0001-027 Chang's Realty Corp $11,267.49

08-0002-200 Binghamton Associates LLC $10,236.39

11-0001-016 Belcher John C $8,923.24

03-0002-001 ETS Realty Corporation $8,869.46

09-0006-028 Greater Binghamton Dev., LLC $6,994.82

08-0001-031 139 Washington Street LLC $6,967.53

09-0003-009 218 Water Street LLC $6,878.98

08-0001-087 People of the State of NY/BU $6,871.40

09-0006-070 Metrocenter Assoc, LLC $6,220.76

 

Hey, since you are doing all this research, what is the exact amount that the Kradjians owe?

[Guest Guest]

Hey, since you are doing all this research, what is the exact amount that the Kradjians owe?

 

"Kradjians" do not owe anything.

[Guest William Collector]

"Kradjians" do not owe anything.

 

All this splitting of hairs Ed...you are a real word smith. How much does Kradro owe?