Gilroy resident Jenny Liu stands in front of her and her

GILROY
– After much research, Jenny Liu says there is no possible way
she and her husband could have used 98,000 gallons of water in
August – about seven times what’s normal for their house. But
that’s what Liu’s city water bill said on Aug. 31, and she won’t
pay for it.
City officials are sticking by it
– even though they can’t explain it any more than she can.
GILROY – After much research, Jenny Liu says there is no possible way she and her husband could have used 98,000 gallons of water in August – about seven times what’s normal for their house. But that’s what Liu’s city water bill said on Aug. 31, and she won’t pay for it.

City officials are sticking by it – even though they can’t explain it any more than she can.

That exasperates Liu, who says it shows a poor sense of customer service and is threatening to take the matter to small-claims court.

“Their policy is so self-centered and has no concern for people at all,” Liu said. “They should be the first to find out what happened. … I told them, … the reasonable thing for you guys to do is charge me average usage.”

Ninety-eight thousand gallons is about how much water was used at the Lius’ house over the eight months before August. The problem isn’t a burst pipe, city Administrative Services Director Michael Dorn said, because it seemingly stopped on its own; the Lius’ September bill was for 13,000 gallons. Liu said her property was checked for water leaks before they moved in on July 21 and again, since the bill, by Santa Clara Valley Water District staff. No leaks were found, she said. If the front yard’s automatic sprinkler system – then programmed to operate for 15 minutes every other day – had somehow stuck open, it would probably have caused several inches of standing water for several days, Dorn said.

“We would have noticed,” Liu said, but they never did.

Although city officials recently dropped Liu’s $421 bill to $120 and waived a $40 late penalty, it’s still a bill for 98,000 gallons versus her normal 15,000 or so, and Liu is adamant about the principle, not the fee (her average monthly fee is about $20).

Liu is demanding they come up with a “reasonable reason” how that much water could have passed though the pipes of her 8907 Church St. house in August. Otherwise, Liu said, she and her attorney will sue the city.

Dorn says the city doesn’t need a reason, just a meter reading.

“We have every indication that the water went through the meter at that amount,” Dorn said Wednesday. “The water was actually used. … We’ve bought the water … from the Santa Clara Valley Water District.”

Quite simply, Dorn said, the city’s meters are incapable of reading higher-than-actual water levels.

“We’ve had them run low, but never high,” Dorn said. “It can go slower because, as it ages, there’s friction … and calcium build-up.”

As for the reason, Dorn said there are many legitimate possibilities.

“A hose might have been left on; a toilet flap could have been sticking,” Dorn said. “When they went on vacation (two weekends in August), a neighbor might have turned on the hose for something and forgot it.”

A broken pipe wouldn’t have stopped of its own accord.

Liu said she would have noticed a stuck toilet. Plus, she pointed out, even if a toilet leaked continually for 30 days, draining its 1.6-gallon tank every minute, that would only account for 69,000 gallons, leaving 29,000 – about double her average monthly use. As for a hose, she said she would have noticed her lawn flooded.

On Wednesday, the meter’s manufacturer – Invensys Metering Systems, formerly Rockwell Manufacturing Co. – offered to replace it with a new one, ship the old meter to the factory in Uniontown, Penn., and disassemble it to find if it was working properly – all at no charge to either Liu or the city.

The city had previously offered to inspect the meter. As a matter of policy, it does this for a $65 fee, supposedly refundable if the meter is proven faulty. Yet city officials say they haven’t refunded a meter-inspection fee in more than 30 years. Upon hearing that, Liu decided she didn’t trust the city’s inspection.

Liu said she’ll probably accept Invensys’ offer, but she expects the meter was accurate.

“I have right now probably more faith in the meter than I do in the city of Gilroy,” Liu said. “I would like to have more investigation into their way of billing. … I want them to prove that someone actually came out and did these readings, that it was not just an estimate.”

Dorn said the city always sends a staff member in person to read each meter every month – unlike some utility companies, which skip months and fill in with estimates.

Liu is now requiring that all her correspondence with the city be in writing, which Dorn said makes the process slower, more difficult and more costly on the city’s end.

“We’ve spent much, much more than the cost of the billing” on staff hours given to dealing with Liu’s complaint, Dorn said.

Dorn said Liu has personally caused a public-relations headache for his water billing office. In the two days after a letter from Liu appeared in the Actionline column in Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News, two more people approached the city with water bill complaints.

Liu says the issue is taking its toll on her, too.

“I’m so stressed out; I’ve been taking so much time to deal with this,” Liu said. “I just moved (to Gilroy, from San Jose), … but I will move out as soon as possible because I don’t want to live in a place where it’s so unreasonable. … I have lived in many countries. … Even in China, it’s not as unreasonable as this.”

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