San Angelo Trailer Parks Hit By City Water, Trash Billing Changes

When Erica Anderson took over as property manager at River Bend Estates and Christoval Estates mobile home parks 10 years ago, she spent six to seven months getting both properties from a single-water billing system to individual water billing for her tenants. The property management company purchased meters from the City of San Angelo, and once the company had them installed, City of San Angelo Water Utilities, as it does for all area residents, sent employees out to monitor the residents’ meters and billed them for water and trash services.

However, on Oct. 19, 2015, residents and Anderson received letters stating that as of Nov. 25, COSA Water Utilities would no longer provide water billing services, and Republic Trash Services would be removing individual trash bins from the residents. The property manager would also have to place large trash bins on the premises once more.

“I was told because the mobile home park is private property, [the city is] not supposed to be putting any of [its] equipment on it without using a licensed plumber,” Anderson said. “However, we’ve been doing this for nine years, and all of a sudden [the city] decided to change it."

Because so many tenants came to her with concerns, including the many elderly residents who have come to depend on their services, and who pay county, city and school property taxes like every other home owner in San Angelo, Anderson contacted the water utility.

“When I contacted the water department and spoke to Toni Fox, customer service manager for the water utility, she told me the reason they were doing that was because they were having too many problems reading the meters and they didn’t have the man power to read them,” Anderson said.

Additionally, Anderson called Jeremy Miller from Republic Trash Services. She said he was receptive to the properties keeping the trash cans, but he was informed that Republic would have to send out one master bill, which would create a problem because they would have no way to track bins and things would be too complicated.

“Without the water bills, it’s going to be hard to keep the trash cans, and they told me the residents aren’t pulling their bins into the street properly, and they’re not doing this and that,” Anderson noted. “Well, it’s not just here. It’s all over San Angelo. I’m sure everywhere you go someone is not placing their trash cans properly."

Anderson added that the specific instructions have to be followed and not all people are going to do things perfectly. That’s why she told Mr. Miller that Republic should have told her about the problems. She would have fixed them.

“It’s just too much,” Anderson stated.

Anderson said she feels her tenants are being singled out because they live in a trailer park.

Additionally, if trash bins are removed, Anderson said her property management company would have to pay for five or six large trash bins at one park, and three or four at another. However, the properties tried dumpsters in the past, and things got out of hand.

“There is so much trash,” the property manager stated. “[Residents] put their trash in front of their house, it gets knocked over and there’s tons of cats."

Not to mention, Anderson said by the time people get their trash to the bins, there’s garbage all over the street.

“We’ve had [trash bins] before, and they looked really bad,” she said. “We ended up having to clean [things] up, and then we had the problem of [tenants] not dumping the dumpster because someone put a couch or bed in front of it, and we didn’t know who it was."

Because of that, Anderson had to pay for extra pickups. However, all that changed with the individual trash bins.

“Ever since we’ve had these cans in front of the mobile homes, you can tell a big difference on how much cleaner it looks,” Anderson stated. “There are lids on them; people are putting their trash in them. They’re not getting dumped over. It’s a big difference."

What’s more interesting, said Anderson, is they never had problems with trash pickup before; but now all of a sudden, that’s changed.

“Now they’re saying the trucks don’t fit on the streets; there’s no room, and people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s just too much trouble," Anderson said. “It’s like that all through San Angelo.”

Anderson noted that things would be different if it was just one property tax the property management company paid; however, between both properties, they pay over $90,000 in taxes to the city and the county a year, and tenants pay their own individual taxes.

Taking Things a Step Further

Because of the answers she received from Fox and Miller, and because she attempted to contact Bill Riley, director of the Water Utilities Department, but received no answer, Anderson contacted Councilman Rodney Fleming, Single-Member District 1, who told her Fox’s explanation is “not good enough” and that she should take her problem to the City Council meeting, which Anderson did this Thursday.

Thursday morning, City Council held its second monthly meeting, and Anderson explained the issue she and her tenants are facing during public comment.

During that meeting, Anderson told council members, “We’re okay with the water billing part of it, reading the meters and sub billing our tenants; that’s not the problem. The trash service is the main issue that we’re having.”

Anderson went on to explain that many tenants are unhappy with the decision COSA made, and she reiterated how she feels her tenants are being singled out.

“We have a lot of elderly people in the community who cannot take their trash to the dumpsters that we have to provide for them,” the woman explained. “The cans have made the community a lot cleaner. We don’t have cats and trash everywhere. We really enjoyed having the trash cans. We have a lot of tenants unhappy with this decision they made."

Anderson added that she called the Sun Lake Estates mobile home park, and the property manager there told her she or her tenants never received letters.

“I have been told there are only a few of the communities that are being told this, so it’s not an all-around situation. I don’t think that’s fair," she added. “There are 209 mobile homes in those parks. We pay the taxes just like anybody else in San Angelo. We should have the same rights San Angelo has as far as trash services.”

The council members agreed, and Fleming said he was surprised nothing had been worked out since Anderson spoke with him last.

“I talked to Bill. Bill told me he got this fixed, and it clearly is not fixed,” said Fleming. “This is kind of a big deal, and it’s not just affecting one mobile home park."

Fleming added that if no resolution is found immediately, Anderson’s property plight would be added to the Regular Agenda for the next meeting so one could be found.

However, as of Thursday afternoon, that might not be necessary since Riley finally returned Anderson’s call.

“I called Mr. Riley a couple of times and he never called me back until I showed up at the City Council meeting,” Anderson proclaimed. “I think the reason he didn’t call me back is because he probably thought we were just going to let it go."

Fighting the Inconsistencies

Although Riley told Anderson Thursday he will be speaking with some people to resolve her complaint, Anderson feels things didn’t have to get to this point.

She said things got to this point because of issues with billing. The properties have dealt with this issue for the past two to three years.

“We started going around reading our own meters because we felt we were being over billed,” Anderson explained.

Anderson said she started questioning the bills because the properties were receiving high bills for the master meter. She was paying over $1,000 a month for that meter alone.

“We ended up getting new master meters a couple of times, and [the city] came out a few times to check and said we had a leak,” Anderson said. “They said we were using 275,000 gallons a day. If we were using that much water a day, we’d see it somewhere.”

Therefore, five months ago, Anderson called the water department and asked for a report of the master meter reading and individual meter readings, which the department complied with. Anderson and her staff went around to read the meters to compare them with the water report. That’s when they noticed several broken meters, and several buried in the dirt.

“The satellites were not being read,” Anderson noted. Also, when she spoke with tenants about this, one of them told her, “Well, my water bill has been $30 for the past 6 months."

Anderson said she found that interesting because many tenants reported the same. She said she has another tenant with a bigger home that houses seven to eight people, and that bill has averaged $60.

When she told this to Fox, Anderson said the woman wasn’t happy about it. “She said this is just too much. There’s too much trouble over there—too many problems," Anderson said.

Anderson responded by telling Fox if she would have come to her and been up front about the problems, she would have worked with the city. However, that didn’t happen, and when the property manager started sending reports to the department showing the mistakes being made, things became a problem.

Defending the Decision

When asked about the situation, Riley said everything will be taken care of and no trash services will be taken away from residents; however, his department and Republic Services have to figure out how they’re going to bill for services.

“We historically have billed each one of the residents in the mobile home park, but we’re changing that to where we only bill the mobile home park because we don’t own the infrastructure inside [it],” explained Riley. “The problem is that did affect the trash service because of the way we do billing. We haven’t totally figured that out, but we’re going to figure out to where they have individual trash service and it’s billed to the park. We’re not sure how it’s going to be done at this moment, but we’ll figure it all out pretty quick."

Riley added that the problem should be taken care of before the deadline of Nov. 25.

Additionally, when asked why Sun Lake Estates did not receive letters like Anderson’s properties, he said, “We actually own the infrastructure in Sun Lake Estates, so each one of the mains are serviced. We don’t have the same situation as we do with the other ones. We serve individuals off of infrastructure we don’t own. That’s why we made the change."

Riley also said several mobile home parks received the same letter, and they haven’t had any complaints from them.

Also, when told Anderson felt her properties were singled out because of the water billing issues, Riley claimed he had no knowledge of this being the case.

“I was the one who made the call to [make the change],” Riley added. “I was unaware that there was any meter reading issues associated with her park. In fact, I wasn’t aware of any of the parks in this situation. That’s absolutely incorrect."

He also said that maybe Anderson misunderstood Fox because he thinks they were talking about two different things.

“There might have been some discussion about meters that are underneath trailers and meters that are underneath dog houses, and Toni might have said we don’t have the manpower to go dig around for those, and that’s true,” Riley stated. “That’s not a good use of time. To say we don’t have the manpower to go read meters, we do that. I think Ms. Anderson misunderstood that. It’s hard at times to find the meters. They get covered up, and we don’t have easement so we can’t figure out what’s going on. That makes it difficult at times to read the meters. I’m unaware of any issue that would make this retaliatory against her."

Responding to the Explanation

In response to Riley’s comments, Anderson said she felt she was once again getting a different story.

“Now we have the legal part of it. If it was a legal issue, why wasn’t that stated in the letter? Why weren’t we told, ‘We can’t legally meter your water?’ Anderson questioned.

She also said if this was a legal issue, why did it just change now after all these years? Anderson said she even had a meeting with Water Utilities that was set up by Councilman Johnny Silvas, SMD3, a few years ago when this mess began. The city ended up replacing the master meter and put a regulator on it.

“We understood the usage that was going through there, but we were being billed for 250,000 gallons on the master meter alone, and I’m only in the office two days a week,” Anderson stated. “An office isn’t going to use 250,000 gallons a day.”

Anderson also said she has literally paid over $1,000 a month for the meter at River Bend for the last three or four years.

“This is for our master meter and they’re still sub billing from each of our tenants, plus my bill. Something’s not right there,” she added. “We’re not being billed correctly. Either they’re not reading every meter and we’re just picking up the overage. They’re not worried about getting their money. If they’re not reading the meters correctly, they’re still going to get that money from my master meter."

Reading the Meters

Monica with the Water Utilities Department explained that water meter readers go out to residential homes in cycles, which is usually 28 days. However, if the 28^th day falls on a weekend, the readers will go out on a Monday. Additionally, residents are billed per 1,000 gallons.

However, Anderson pondered how the city knows what and how to charge if no one is reading the meters.

Despite Riley’s claim, it’s not difficult accessing the meters on the properties.

“Most of them are in a box on the back side of the home,” she explained. “My guy has been reading them the last three months. We don’t even have the little scanner they have. We get down on our hands and knees and physically read them, so I don’t think they can’t read them. I think that if that was a problem, they would have said something to me."

Understanding A Bigger Discrepancy

Anderson said she felt her properties were singled out, but Riley said all area mobile homes received the letters she did. Riley was correct; however, there was a discrepancy with the trash service letters.

Where Anderson was told her properties would no longer receive trash services and all the bins would be removed from the properties, two other mobile home parks, South Concho and Stardust, were told something different.

Gina Scott, the property manager at South Concho said all her residents did receive letters about the water billing change, but they were told trash services would not change and that she would receive one large master bill. She would have to sub bill her tenants for that as well as water. Not once was she told bins would be removed.

However, like Anderson, she had no previous warning about the change, and she, to this day, cannot get the right answers from city officials.

“Honestly, I’ve talked to three to four different people, and I can never get a straight answer,” Scott said.

Scott was told the city planned on removing all the “smart” meters and they would be replaced with other meters. Another person told her no other meters would be placed and she would have to take care of that on her own.

“Call me crazy, but I’ve never read a meter in my life,” Scott stated. “Then they told me I would have to figure it out individually. Then they told me my trash service would stay the same, but I don’t know what to think. I’ve been stressing about it because I don’t know what to do."

Scott stated that in addition to individual bins, the property has the large trash bins, but for three weeks, Trash Services failed to dump them. When she called to find out why, she was told she didn’t have an account and hadn’t had one since 2011.

“It’s very confusing,” the property manager complained. “There’s no straight answer. So basically, I will have to be figuring what everybody’s water and trash bills are. The lady at the water department told me we shouldn’t have gotten those letters. That trash service was going to stay the same."

Sarai Dazila, the new property manager of Stardust since August, said she was told the same. Trash services would stay the same and she would receive one large bill. However, the property management company would have to purchase new meters on its own, and like the other properties, will have to sub bill. Something the property hasn’t had to do for a long time.

“Based on the feedback from the residents, the city started reading their meters about a decade ago,” Dazila said.

However, unlike Anderson’s Tenants, Dazila’s tenants do not pay property taxes, so they are adjusting to the change. Additionally, they were told they wouldn’t have changes made to trash services.

As Anderson asked, why did her tenants only receive this letter from Republic? Why was she told the billing would be too complicated when the other properties were told they would receive one single bill? Why would only their trash bins be removed?

Well, now that City Council is aware of the problem, Anderson’s tenants will hopefully have a solution, but she may not get the answers to her questions. She says she will continue to fight for what she describes as her tenants’ rights, especially when 35 percent of those tenants at River Bend Estates, and 25 percent at Christoval Estates, are elderly and struggle with daily activities.

Anderson has spent more than 10 years on the properties, and she’s come to care for the tenants who live at both places. She also cares for the properties in general.

“We don’t want this to be a trashy trailer park that’s run down and no one cares about,” she said. “That’s why I’m fighting for it."