Schenectady homeowners whose water lines break face big costs
Monday, March 24, 2014
By Kathleen Moore (Contact)
Gazette Reporter  
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Advertisement SCHENECTADY — A water break on Front Street left several blocks caked in ice. Another break on Moyston Street left water bubbling up from the road, creating a huge hole.

But in each case, it wasn’t the city’s problem. The cause was broken water laterals, which must be repaired by the home owner.

But the cost of repairs can hit $6,000, and some owners just don’t have the money. It’s not something that can be put off; once water starts pouring out of the ground, Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen can wait only a few weeks.

If, after a month, the owner still hasn’t found the money to make the repairs, city workers shut off the water and tell the inhabitants they must move out. No one is allowed to live in a house with no water service.

Typically, it’s elderly homeowners and tenants who get kicked out, Olsen said. Breaking that news is the worst part of his job, he added.

So for more than a year he’s been advocating for a new city policy, in which city workers fix the laterals.

Last year, the City Council agreed to add the costs of the program to the 2014 budget. Olsen bought excavation equipment needed to do the work. But the council never agreed to let the program start.

After the Moyston Street break, which led to two families being evicted from their apartments, Olsen is trying again.

His latest idea: Either charge $48 per year to every property owner, or charge the cost of materials to the owners with broken laterals. The city would pay for the labor.

Both proposals have encountered resistance from the City Council — and from city workers, private plumbers and others.

One city worker, filling in a hole after a water lateral break Wednesday, said the city couldn’t afford to do the repairs because the cost of a mistake would be too high.

He worried that a worker would accidentally break a gas line — often found near water lines — and cause an explosion. He didn’t want the city to have to pay for such damages.

Private companies, including plumbers and those who dig up leaking pipes, have also objected on the grounds that the city would take over a big revenue stream. There’s 100 to 125 lateral breaks in the city each year, according to Deputy Director of Water and Wastewater Paul LaFond, and all of those are currently repaired by private contractors.

Some City Council members have also said they won’t support a city-funded repair program because it’s not fair to those who recently paid their own repair bills for lateral problems on their property.

Councilman Ed Kosiur, who replaced his own lateral two years ago, said the program also falls flat because the homeowner might end up having to hire a plumber to bring the house’s water connection up to code.

But Olsen said that wouldn’t be as serious a situation as a break.

“The water would not be running down the street,” he said, noting that his crews had to salt daily for three weeks after the Front Street break.

Councilman Vince Riggi wasn’t convinced either, and he said many city residents also would be opposed.

“If somebody had a water lateral replaced in the last 20 years, they’re not going to need one” in their lifetime, he said.

But others saw the program as a way of solving a major problem.

“I think it’s a good program,” said Councilman John Mootooveren.

Councilman Carl Erikson said he didn’t want to charge people until their lateral broke, but said he’d support a program with a flat fee per repair job.

Now the debate may be focusing on how much the city would charge. The council plans to discuss it again April 7.

By then, city workers say, there will be more breaks. The long, harsh winter has taken its toll, and until the frost is gone from the ground, they expect it to continue to cause problems.

I thought the rule always was if the water break was on your property it was the homeowners responsibility for the repairs, but if the break happened on city property, from the shutoff to the water main the city had to fix the problem.

Every property owner is responsible to pay for their own broken water main. The City should stay out of the Plumbing business. "Uncle Tom" Mootooveren should donate his councilman salary to the taxpayers since he lied to get elected. Then the city might have enough money to fund a seperate program for the homeowners that can't afford to fix the water main break. The DEMS solution to everything is to TAX AND FEE THE HELL OUT OF PROPERTY OWNERS THIS IS WHY THERE IS 1,200 FORECLOSED HOMES IN THE CITY OF SCHENECTADY!
  

Yet, living in Rotterdam, in a house with no water, electricity, gas or heat, is fine and acceptable.

Go figure.

(Yes, it IS happening - one house for over 6 years that I know of!)

This is a way to pay for the city owned houses that are in disrepair

Quoted from rpforpres

This is a way to pay for the city owned houses that are in disrepair

Exactly! Pass the buck down to the already struggling taxpayer by letting the taxpayer pay for the DEMS mistakes by creating a hostile business enviroment in SCHENECTADY which has led to 1,200 foreclosed city owned homes off the tax roll. Many homeowners rather pay the once in a lifetime full upfront cost of $6,000 to fix the broken water main instead of paying a life time ownership fee of $48.00 over years and years which will total over $6,000

I have a great solution why don't we charge a fee to all of the Metroplex government funded for-profit businesses the Center City, Marcellas, Villa Italia, Bombers, Paul Mitchell, Clintons Ditch, Van Dyke, Transfinder, etc. to pay for all the broken water main in the City! These DEMS puppets on the City Council will always find ways to screw the taxpayers and not their rich developer friends. (DEMS PUPPETS ARE BOUGHT OUT BY RICH CRONIES)

Homeowners could afford to repair their own pipes if they had the  money, but the Dem leadership in the city, county, and plex have STOLEN money from the homeowners in order to give the money out to the multimillionaires and multibillionaires downtown, to build and renovate buildings for the ultra rich (who in turn are very generous to the dems via kickbacks at election time).  

These downtown developers/owner would NEVER have to pay for such repairs, rather the dems would go to the financially struggling homeowners in the neighborhoods and force them to cover the costs.

And of course we all know the financially struggling homeowners are paying the property taxes of all the rich downtown on top of paying their own taxes.

So on top of  water fee and a sewer fee, they will also pay an additional water and sewer fee to cover the pipes on their own properties because the city Dems have put the homeowners in the poor house.

The Dems and plex have got to go.

Just a little over a month and we will see the results of yet another year of Dem leadership in the city, when we see the numbers showing yet another massive drop in the city's tax base.

Quoted from mikechristine1

Homeowners could afford to repair their own pipes if they had the  money, but the Dem leadership in the city, county, and plex have STOLEN money from the homeowners in order to give the money out to the multimillionaires and multibillionaires downtown, to build and renovate buildings for the ultra rich (who in turn are very generous to the dems via kickbacks at election time).  

These downtown developers/owner would NEVER have to pay for such repairs, rather the dems would go to the financially struggling homeowners in the neighborhoods and force them to cover the costs.

And of course we all know the financially struggling homeowners are paying the property taxes of all the rich downtown on top of paying their own taxes.

So on top of  water fee and a sewer fee, they will also pay an additional water and sewer fee to cover the pipes on their own properties because the city Dems have put the homeowners in the poor house.

The Dems and plex have got to go.

Just a little over a month and we will see the results of yet another year of Dem leadership in the city, when we see the numbers showing yet another massive drop in the city's tax base.

I agree the 2015 Mayoral Election will be very polarizing. McThug and Company has created class warfare in Schenectady. The battle lines are drawn in the sand CITY PROPERTY TAXPAYERS vs. RICH DEVELOPERS
The next Mayor will have to fight for the CITY PROPERTY TAXPAYERS in order to win the Mayoral post. So far McThug has pandered to the RICH DEVELOPERS AND HAS POCKETED HANDSOMELY FROM THEM.

More than 75% of the Council either "rents" from Mom or Dad or there sole property in the city is assessed for less than $80,000.  That is the reason they dont care about cutting taxes.  Taxes are already low for them.  

Quoted from firefox

I agree the 2015 Mayoral Election will be very polarizing. McThug and Company has created class warfare in Schenectady. The battle lines are drawn in the sand CITY PROPERTY TAXPAYERS vs. RICH DEVELOPERS
The next Mayor will have to fight for the CITY PROPERTY TAXPAYERS in order to win the Mayoral post. So far McThug has pandered to the RICH DEVELOPERS AND HAS POCKETED HANDSOMELY FROM THEM.

I am actually thinking that McC won't run.  But there will be a "queen."   It will be Queen Leesa.  Of course, Proctors will look to getting more money out of the county taxpayer in order to be very generous in donating to her.  King Philip will probably double the fee that volunteers are forced to pay in order to be volunteers in order to give his girl a generous donation.  I would say, however that her running and becoming a mayor would probably result in ethics violation, well it would seem so.

Worst thing is that so many of the people in the city are much to dem, I mean dumb, to vote for other than the dems.  Sure, pretty and clean new buildings look nice, but somehow the voters need to have the message drilled into them that they footed the bill for downtown, yet there is largely no place to buy anything in the city, can't buy a new car anywhere in the city, the tax base is way down, ditto property values and home selling prices and home sales.  Acutally the republican candidates last fall could have done a far better job in their campaigns to provide the FACTS to the voters, to actually come out and show year by year what the value of the tax base has been so to show how it has been dropping as money has been spent downtown.  Further to take what was a house worth $100,000 some years ago and to show year by year how the market value of the house has dropped while the tab bills have increased, and then show how outside the city a typical $100,000 house in the same period of time has had an increase in value without the proportionate increase in taxes.  That would blow out all the claims by McC that buyers will get more for their bucks in the city.  Heck, this fall, just for the one council seat alone, the republican party should really use an amortization table for a typical home purchase to show how the amount owed is more than the value of the house.   And they should explain this is all the result of the wild uncontrolled spending on downtown, and then they need to tell the voters how much all of downtowns developers and property owners are worth, and list their home addresses so to show that those who are beneficiaries of the tax dollars are getting richer at the expense of the financially struggling homeownewrs.

Quoted from mikechristine1

I am actually thinking that McC won't run.  But there will be a "queen."   It will be Queen Leesa.  Of course, Proctors will look to getting more money out of the county taxpayer in order to be very generous in donating to her.  King Philip will probably double the fee that volunteers are forced to pay in order to be volunteers in order to give his girl a generous donation.  I would say, however that her running and becoming a mayor would probably result in ethics violation, well it would seem so.

Worst thing is that so many of the people in the city are much to dem, I mean dumb, to vote for other than the dems.  Sure, pretty and clean new buildings look nice, but somehow the voters need to have the message drilled into them that they footed the bill for downtown, yet there is largely no place to buy anything in the city, can't buy a new car anywhere in the city, the tax base is way down, ditto property values and home selling prices and home sales.  Acutally the republican candidates last fall could have done a far better job in their campaigns to provide the FACTS to the voters, to actually come out and show year by year what the value of the tax base has been so to show how it has been dropping as money has been spent downtown.  Further to take what was a house worth $100,000 some years ago and to show year by year how the market value of the house has dropped while the tab bills have increased, and then show how outside the city a typical $100,000 house in the same period of time has had an increase in value without the proportionate increase in taxes.  That would blow out all the claims by McC that buyers will get more for their bucks in the city.  Heck, this fall, just for the one council seat alone, the republican party should really use an amortization table for a typical home purchase to show how the amount owed is more than the value of the house.   And they should explain this is all the result of the wild uncontrolled spending on downtown, and then they need to tell the voters how much all of downtowns developers and property owners are worth, and list their home addresses so to show that those who are beneficiaries of the tax dollars are getting richer at the expense of the financially struggling homeownewrs.

If Queen Leesa runs for Mayor she will definately lose! I agree the Republican candidates needs to run a more effective campaign with charts, diagrams and political cartoon like marketing to show voters the corruption and tax increases year after year under the  FAILED DEMS.  This type of targeted campaigning will resonate with many dumb voters even a 5th grader will understand.

The increase in taxes is clear for anyone that excrows their taxes as the total "tax" bill including the fees is more transparent.  

Three of my escrows have increased from 2006 to 2011 like this:

House#1: $4300 to $7800
House#2 $5800 to $8600
House#3 $7500 to $9700

Quoted Text

But in each case, it wasn’t the city’s problem. The cause was broken water laterals, which must be repaired by the home owner.

But the cost of repairs can hit $6,000, and some owners just don’t have the money. It’s not something that can be put off; once water starts pouring out of the ground, Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen can wait only a few weeks.

Ah, now it's coming to light.


McC and his desperate attempt to sell house in the city.  Who are most of the buyers of the FEW house, overall, that have sold IN the city?    They are lower income people.  Of course, they won't have the money.  So, the city discusses yet another fee to be charged to every homeowner.

So the long time financially struggling middle class homeowners are paying the taxes for the ultrarich political cronies of the dems, and then they are subsidizing the purchases and routine costs of the lower income homeonwers.

Just remember this is stuff for water and sewer and the people of the city already pay very high water and sewer fees.  So will this be an "increase to an existing fee" or will this be a "new fee."

Heck, sidewalks are the homeowner's responsibility but are costly to replace and since it's mostly lower income people buying houses---these buyers do NOT understand the whole idea of property values so they have no comprehension of the falling value of their homes -- so anyway, they are not putting money aside to pay to replace their sidewalks when the time comes.  So of course, crete a sidewalk fee so the long time middle class taxpaying homeowners can subsidize the low income homeowners  for the cost of replacing their sidewalks.


There really is no difference between Obama, Cuomo, DeBlasio, McCarthy and the rest of the dem council people in the city.

"There really is no difference between Obama, Cuomo, DeBlasio, McCarthy and the rest of the dem council people in the city."

They are all Jokers in a pack of card.