Several Calion residents have expressed frustration at being billed for zero gallons-(of) use as part of the new sewer system south of Lake Calion and are asking when, or if, it will end.
In July 2013, former Calion Mayor Karen Evans sent a letter to residents on the south side of the lake after six years of discussion about a new sewer system to get residents off of septic tanks.
Money had been acquired for the system through a $300,000 40-year loan from the USDA Rural Development Loan Funds; $243,900 from the USDA Rural Development Grant Funds; $721,337 from Arkansas Natural Resources CDBG and $63 from application contribution to total $1,255,300, according to a special city council meeting minutes from Sept. 2013.
In the letter, Evans stated the city was at the stage in the process of securing signed applications and a one-time connection fee of $250 for each residence before an engineer could put together plans for a construction bid and for construction to ensue.
“Only after the sewer is installed, connected and operating, will you begin getting a monthly sewer bill,” Evans wrote in the letter. “It will not only serve to improve the health and well being of our community, but will upgrade and raise property values for each of you.”
Residents were to submit applications by Sept. 15 of that year. The original proposal quoted a minimum $40 for the first 1,000 gallons of use. It was later changed to $35 before the system was installed.
“They had to get everybody on or nobody, and so she was pretty invested in getting people to sign up,” Calion Mayor Bill Yutzy said. “They did. That was one of the stipulations for getting the grant and the loan to finish out the project.”
Yutzy said the sewer is up and running and a few properties connected don’t have a building on them, so when it was up and running, some property owners refused to pay what they were billed.
The contract is an application that was attached to the July 2013 letter that lists the rules and policies from the city if a residence was hooked up to the new system.
Rules include: (a) permitting the city to install a new septic tank and abandon the old one; (b) permitting the city to connect the septic tank effluent pump into the home electric system for 115 volt, single phase, 60 Hz for the pump and controls to operate and feed to the system; (c) agree to sign an agreement to allow the city to install a sewer line across the property; (d) pay the city the monthly sewer service bill promptly for the sewer service; (e, f, g, h) not introduce unwanted products into the sewer system; (i) the city will maintain the system at no expense to the sewer customer other than the normal monthly billing and all equipment for operations, although if damages occur due to unauthorized items, costs will be assessed to the property and/or homeowner; (j) to call the city if an alarm comes on signaling a possible problem; (k) to accept applications for homes under construction; (l) and to pay a one-time initial connection feed of $250.
It went on to say if the city couldn’t provide a sewer service for the applicant, the city would discharge the application agreement by refunding the connection fee in full.
In the special meeting minutes from 2013, it was noted that those who don’t pay the connection fee in the beginning will be made to hook up later at their own expense, which could cost as much as $10,000. “Any resident within 300 ft. (sic) of the main line must hook up to the system according to Ordinance #102 and it is also a state law,” the minutes read.
The point of contention now, though, Yutzy said, is item D on the application: “We agree to pay the City of Calion the monthly sewer service bill promptly for the sewer service.”
“They say they’re not getting sewer service, so they aren’t going to pay,” Yutzy said. “We’re kind of between a rock and a hard place because if we don’t maintain our users, then the state will come back on us and say we have defaulted. We don’t want to do that, we want to keep the city as near above ground as we can.”
Yutzy said the state says service is having the system available while some residents are interpreting the contract differently.
“There’s questions, there’s issues,” he said.
He said he read the criteria from the state’s regulations for service at a city council meeting and tried to explain it to the best of his ability.
“There was just a few that didn’t understand it, that couldn’t understand it,” Yutzy said. “Most people said OK, we understand what’s going on.”
In September 2013, the city proposed a rate schedule for new sewer customers with water charges separate — the first 1,000 gallons of water use would be a $40 minimum. The second thousand would be $5, and over 2,000 gallons of water use would be $4 per 1,000 gallons, so a bill for 4,000 gallons would be $55.50.
In January 2017, a different water and sewer rate schedule was approved and circulated with the minimum charge of $35 for the first 1,000 gallons for the commercial and proposed sewer rates south addition.
For retired fire chief Randy Amason and Dan Whiddon, who have both spoken and raised questions about their billing at numerous city council meetings, and several others who receive a monthly bill of at least $35 for sewage on property that either has utilities disconnected or no use whatsoever, the monthly charge doesn’t seem right.
Whiddon said on his family’s property, a cabin burned down, but they felt forced to allow the city to put in the new system otherwise they’d have to pay up to $10,000 later.
“They were pushing this as if we didn’t get on it, we were going to be penalized to do it,” he said. “We decided to go ahead… We figured that was the end of it until we started using it. We do not have electricity, we do not have water on our property, and…they’ve been forcing us $37.50 and we’ve had zero usage of water.”
Whiddon said he went to city council meetings and the council said there would be no change and he would have to pay his bill from now on.
For Amason’s property on Dugan Road that leads up to the lake, he said he requested his water be turned off in June 2018 and received a bill for the sewer service in October and every month following through present day.
As of the end of April 2020, Amason has a bill greater than $600 for the sewer he said he doesn’t intend to pay. All he wants is to be treated the same as those who don’t live south of the lake when it comes to the sewer system, he said.
“(I want) the same thing they do for everyone else in Calion that (doesn’t) live over here,” he said. “They shut their water off, they don’t get a water bill, they don’t get a sewer bill. I just want the same thing for everybody.”
Sherian Smith said she was also billed for $35 throughout 2019 on her property while she was tending to her husband who was in the hospital and later died in June.
She said she was in and out of the hospital and wasn’t at the south Lake Calion property other than maybe two months of that year. One month there was a water leak, so she did have a higher bill and paid that bill and had her water turned off, she said.
Smith said she lives on that property now and pays her bills regularly, but didn’t think it was right to be billed while the service wasn’t in use.
Angel Callicott, who rents from Amason on a property south of the lake, said she had a similar issue with being billed while she was in the hospital having a procedure.
She said she wasn’t at her residence most of the time, and while she was there, she wasn’t able to move around much and wasn’t sure why she was charged the amount she was.
At a Jan. 9 city council meeting this year, Callicott asked about her bill being corrected. The News-Times obtained two separate versions of the meeting minutes, one of which is signed by Yutzy and another, more detailed version, that is not signed by any city official. Callicott is referred to as “a citizen” in both versions while others who spoke, such as Amason and Ashley Orrell, who only appears in the second version of the meeting notes, are named.
During that meeting, the minutes say Amason asked the council about multiple topics, including the sewer project and a required audit from the city. Yutzy responded that the audit had been done, according to both versions of the minutes. The “citizen” that is mentioned — Callicott — “addressed the council about their water bill being incorrect,” both minutes say, going on to note that Yutzy would go back and “check on this billing.”
In an April phone interview with the News-Times, Yutzy said the city tries not to give out meeting minutes until they’re signed by himself and the recorder and that they’re typically signed by the next meeting, but if someone wants a copy at that moment, it will be issued. By the next meeting, though, the minutes are signed.
Yutzy said he’s spoken with the city’s attorney who advised to continue charging residents since it’s in the agreement.
He said he hates that people are unhappy with the sewer system situation, and would like everyone to be happy.
“I am learning that we can’t probably make everybody happy,” Yutzy said.