Chamois aldermen at their meeting last Wednesday night decided not to vote on the proposed amended water ordinance.  About 20 members of the community, mostly landlords showed up at the meeting and voiced their concerns about the city’s proposed amendment to the water ordinance.

Property owners had a lot of questions about how the new ordinance would affect them and their tenants.

“I’m reading this (the new ordinance), but reading doesn’t always answer all of my questions,” property owner Judy Maxie said. “Does it say in here that monthly payments will be made by the landowner?”

“Yes,” Mayor Elise Brochu answered. “Our intent is that any existing accounts will be left as they are. New accounts would be set up under the new amendment and if anyone gets shut off and needs to get turned back on the new amendment would cover that.”

“I don’t want to pay anyone’s bills,” property owner Jim Light said. “You (the city of Chamois) don’t want to pay nobody’s bills but that’s what you are forcing us to do.”

Maxie and Janice Sehnert both asked the board how many landlords the city of Chamois had and Brochu didn’t have the exact number. The mayor explained that originally when accounts were entered into the system they were not listed as renter or landlord. Currently, when City Clerk Michelle Stanley sets up an account, she calls the Osage County Assessor’s office to find out who the property owner is.

“I don’t understand this,” Sehnert said, clearly frustrated. “It is not going to take that long. In the last six months, a lot of these questions that I have been asking should have been taken care of. First thing on the agenda should have been to keep track of all of the landlords.”

“We’ve been trying to become solvent and take care of things,” Alderman Debbie Huff explained. “Things were not being handled well and we’ve spent six months just trying to get things straightened out and for things to be running the way they need to be.”

Huff asked all the landlords present to make sure that Stanley had a list of all their properties before they left the meeting.

“I would also like to know; on all of the empty vacant residences how much money are we collecting from these?” Sehnert asked.  “Because I was told this was a required fee.”

“It is a required fee,” Brochu said. “Most of our out of town owners pay it. It is the in-town ones we have the most trouble collecting from.”

“And if I have the meter pulled and pay $350, then I don’t have to pay the $30 per month,” Sehnert asked, referring to the water ordinance. “But then I will have to pay $250 if I want to reconnect?”

“I don’t remember the exact numbers, but that sounds correct,” Brochu said.

“So, if I have someone yank the meter than I am good,” Sehnert asked.

“You have to call us and Danny (Kirsch) will do the work,” Brochu said.

“But that will cost me $350,” Sehnert said.

“Yes,” Brochu answered.

“It will cost more if you try to do it yourself and damage the equipment,” Stanley added.

“And that’s illegal,” Brochu said, who was able to tell the group that there were 246 total meters in the city.

“I’m not in favor of making the landlord responsible for making the monthly payments,” Maxie said. “I think the city needs to get their end straightened up for a while because I think that has been a lot of the problem in the past.”

“Why are the water bills going so long before they are being shut off?” property owner Steve White asked.

“Right now, anyone with a balance over 60 days gets shut off,” Brochu said.

“Why can’t we just do 10 days?”  Sehnert asked. “Why are we going to 60 days?”

“No one should be in the hole,” White said. “Because if they need to put down a deposit once that deposit gets close to being done than you should shut them off. If you don’t shut them off, then you guys are responsible for not doing your job. No one should ever, ever, ever be over because if they go over then shut them off.  That’s the city’s fault not ours.”

“When is the last time the meters were inspected in this town?”  Light asked. “Gas meters are replaced every 10 years or so.”

“All of ours are supposed to be replaced under our water project as soon as that gets underway,” Brochu said. “They should all be replaced in the next year to year and a half.”

“So, it’s been a while since this has been done,” Light said. “The meters may not be reading right.”

“I just replace them when they hit a million (gallons),” Maintenance Supervisor Danny Kirsch said.

“We can call Jefferson City and find out if there is a regulation for that,“ Light said.

“When someone has a question about whether their meter is running correctly, Danny goes out with them and checks to see if it is running and seeing if there is anything going on,” Brochu said.

“But you’re not tracking what’s going through it,” Light said. “You don’t know if it is calibrated right and after so many years there are some out there that have never been calibrated.”

“Keeping a schedule on them hasn’t been a priority because they should all be replaced when we do the water project which should have been last year,” Brochu said. “We can’t afford to replace all of the water meters.”

Many landlords were worried that if they had to add the water deposit and the water bill to their rent that the rent would be too high for their tenants.

“It is almost impossible, unless you start charging $600 to $700 a month in rent to cover the water and sewer bills,” property owner Calvin Cox said. “You are not going to get that price down here in this little town.  The people we rent to have to drive 50 miles to get to work. You’ve got two or three people working minimum wage to keep a roof over their heads with their kids and that is really hard to do.”

“We pay a lot of taxes on these properties,” Light said. “The only reason I moved to this town is because it is a little country town. We have a goal here and the goal is to make Chamois better. Clean it up. Make people want to stop here. We want them to move here. I wouldn’t want to buy nothing else in this town because this is all getting out of control. Is it because the city is broke?  Is the city looking at every avenue to pull money in?”

“I have a question for all of the landlords,” Alderman Marty Gerloff asked. “Let’s say you have a renter and they have a pretty big bill, but it hasn’t been shut off yet. And they jump ship and leave that bill. Will you guys pay that bill before the next renter?”

There was a collective “No” from the landlords.

“According to the current ordinance, you have to pay that bill,” Brochu pointed out.

“Is the city going to pay our rent that they skipped out on?” property owner John Redford said.

“There are collection agencies out there that go after them for you,” Light said.

“But that’s the way the current ordinance reads, that you guys are responsible for that bill,” Gerloff said. “Did you all know before you came in here that the old ordinance said that?”

“I called the Missouri Commission Board in Jefferson City and they said that whoever signed for the water bill, that is a contract between them and the city and we (the property owners) are not liable for that water bill,” Sehnert said.

“Would you be willing to sign that water bill with your tenant?” Gerloff asked.

“Does Ameren do that?” White asked. “Does Dish do that?”

“I’m just telling you that’s how the current ordinance reads,” Gerloff said.

“You’re trying to make the owners responsible for the renters’ bills,” White said,” I don’t see how you can legally do that.”

“Other cities do,” Brochu replied.

“I haven’t heard of any,” White replied.

“That doesn’t make it untrue,” Brochu said.

“It’s your money and you should be responsible for your money,” White said. “Just like we have to be.”

Several landlords brought up past problems with accounts under the former City Clerk Dorcas Ruff.

“We all know we had some problems previously and we are doing our best to get all of this straightened out now,” Brochu said.

Donna Babor noted that she and her husband would like to be notified if their tenants arranged any payment plans.

Babor also wanted to know why the city needed the $125 deposit as listed for property owners in the amended ordinance.

“That’s the deposit that the landlords need to put down that they are never going to get back,” Redford said.

“It’s either that or every time you have a renter move out you can switch the water back to your name and then we will need a deposit put down,” Brochu explained.

“But it shouldn’t be held the whole time because it’s my money,” Redford said. “I love this town, but people want to move down here and be, they don’t want to pay outrageous prices on stuff.”

“We’re not raising your rent,” Gerloff said. “The water bill is going to be the same. It just makes it look higher.”

“The reflection is on us,” Redford said.

Light also brought up that he did not believe that this matter should be decided behind closed doors.

“None of this is behind closed doors,” Brochu said.

“I was told a couple of times that I couldn’t come because it was a closed meeting,” Light said.

“The closed meeting is only for things regarding employee matters or those involving litigation,” Huff said. “Everything else is an open meeting.”

Brochu promised that the board would take all the suggestions and concerns into account as they continued to work on the city’s water ordinance.

The property owners were not happy with the recent newspaper article covering the Chamois Board of Aldermen meeting.

“I want a retraction for the Jan. 2 article in the UD,” Sehnert said.

Sehnert pointed out the quote that read “If there is a leak in that house the property owners are going to be a lot more willing to fix that if the water bill is coming out of their pocket.” In the article the quote in reference was from Alderman Debbie Huff.

“That makes all of us look like slum lords,” Sehnert said.

“Let me just say this Janice,” Huff said. “There have been occasions where we’ve had landlords who have not gone into the house when their tenants have said they had a leak.”

“Has this been recently?” Sehnert asked.

“It has been since I was an alderman, and it has happened a few times,” Huff said. “We’ve had tenants who have had astronomical bills because no one came in and fixed the toilet or the hot water heater and the tenants got stuck with a big bill. That’s wrong.”

“But you should have said not all of us,” Sehnert said. “I’m tired of seeing Chamois in the damn paper to tell you the truth. I don’t appreciate this.”

Light also took offense at the quote in the paper from the Jan. 2 article that stated that landlords didn’t look at the renters closely.

The quote was attributed to Marty Gerloff and read as follows: “As of right now (the property owners) are worried about their rent but when you throw the water bill in too maybe they will be more selective about who they rent to.”

“I check (the renters) good,”  Light said. “But if the water gets shut off, they are not going to be mad at you they are going to be mad at us and they are going to tear our property up. In one night, (the renters) can tear up our property an unreal amount. They are not apt to tear it up if the city of Chamois is who is sending the bill.

“We need to be careful about what goes in the paper,” Light continued. “I don’t want my property to go to nothing. I keep it up. Everyone in here does and then it’s in the paper like this and it’s just wrong.”

“We just need to be a lot more positive,” Sehnert said.

“I don’t think it was anyone’s intention to speak poorly of all of the landlords,” Brochu said. “There wasn’t any negative feeling towards landlords in the room when that was said.”

“There was no intent there for that,” Huff agreed.

“We (the landlords) all came together over this,” Sehnert said. “We were all hurt.  It was a hard statement the way it was put.”

“All Theresa (Brandt, the reporter for the Unterrified Democrat) can do is say that’s what was said,” Brochu continued. “As far as the newspaper goes, it was said in the room and she has to report that it was said in the room. I apologize if the comments came across as if we were speaking poorly of all of the landlords because that was not our intent.”

In other business, the board heard details of different water accounts that have had the water turned off.

One of the customers was able to put down a $200 payment that evening and Stanley will calculate a new payment plan for them, and the water was to be turned back on last week.

Another customer noted that the previous city clerk had not made her adhere to her payment plan.

“I would call and say I didn’t have the money and she (Dorcas Ruff) would say don’t worry about it and then I would get my next bill and it would be high and it got too high for me to catch up,” Mandy Meyer said. “So now I’m trying to get caught up. I have spoken with Michelle about another payment plan because I don’t want to get that far behind again.”

The board approved Meyer’s new payment plan but would not commit to turning on the water until they had received a payment, and aldermen stressed that they would need a payment towards her bill in order to turn the water back on. Several area churches have promised to help Meyer with her bill.

Another customer, whose water had been shut off, will be turned on due to the generosity of area property owner Judy Maxie who paid towards that customer’s bill.

* Brochu informed aldermen that she and Kirsch had met with the Department of Natural Resources to discuss the details of the city’s water project.  Both groups are hoping that the project will start by the end of the year.

“At this point it is all paperwork that’s left,” Brochu said. “The first step to have completed is ours. We need to get the audit completed,”

Brochu and Stanley both thought that this would be completed soon.

* Aldermen voted to have Victoria Hickman enforce the nuisance ordinance for a one-month trial in which she will send letters to city residents that are in violation of the ordinance.  According to the city’s nuisance ordinance, if the items are deemed dangerous the resident has 48 hours to remove the item, or the city will remove the item and charge the resident for the removal. In cases where the items are not a danger to the community the resident in violation will have 14 days to remove the nuisance or face a fine.

Brochu noted that dogs are not covered under the nuisance ordinance.

“Whoever does this has to be consistent,” Brochu insisted.

“I am a non-biased person,” Hickman said. “I’ll ticket everyone who is in violation.”

“I think this is a hot issue with the community,” Huff said. “They want this taken care of.”

* Aldermen approved unpaid bills in the amount of $12,696.92, and the city had receipts of $19,691.57.

* The city of Chamois had the following ending account balances:  General Fund ($61,571.50), Water Fund ($88,133.18), Sewer Fund ($20,649.56), Park Fund ($1,011.77), Water Deposits ($17,709.08), Cemetery Fund ($6,511.78), Sewer Repair Fund ($17,078.39), City Cemetery Fund ($19,526.34). Water Repair Fund ($32,811.17) and the Sewer Bond Reserve ($26,501.10).

*The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 19 at 7 p.m.